Keanu (pt. II)

Knock Knock

Speed

Happy Keanusgiving, everyone. It’s the holiday season, and I can’t think of a warmer, more joyful presence than Keanu Reeves. I am thankful and grateful for many things, one of them being Keanu and his vast, iconic filmography. When I am gathered with my family and friends, I feel at peace, just as when I see Keanu on screen. I clearly cannot get enough of this dude, and I think it’s due to the fact that everything Keanu is in, no matter how bad, is made better by his presence. This was certainly the case for Eli Roth’s 2015 thriller Knock Knock. I’ve only been watching good movies lately, so it was about time for a bad one right? Did I expect this film to be good? No. Did I expect it to be so cringe? Not to this extent, no. Keanu plays a happily married father of two — the kind that has gigantic, professional family photos throughout the house — who is tormented and terrorized by two strange women ([a blonde]Ana De Armas and Lorenza Izzo) who show up at his house one weekend when he’s alone. Written and directed by horndog Eli Roth the Bear Jew, Knock Knock began as a kind of middle-aged male fantasy that twisted into something even harder to watch. I will say that every moment Keanu was being tortured, I, too felt tortured — but perhaps not in the way they intended. I do not cower away from cringe, but some parts of the “we’re just crazy and perverted” dialogue seemed a bit basic and a bit pedestrian. For a premise that was clearly influenced by The Strangers and Funny Games, the levels of debauchery were still pretty low. Ana De Armas and Lorenza Izzo played psychos well and Keanu, despite a bizarre and half-assed script, delivered one of the best performances of his career. No joke. In this dumb, dumb movie that I’ve been putting off watching for so long, hides one of Keanu’s greatest performances. I can’t say much about this movie, thinking about it for too long is upsetting enough. I didn’t get the Eli Roth gruesomeness that I expected but instead I got 100 minutes of soft and hardcore cringe. Even Keanu said that filming most of this movie was awkward, particularly because of all of the sexual implications with Lorenza Izzo, Eli Roth’s wife. Keanu cringed, and we all cringed along with him with Knock Knock. This film is based off of the 1977 psychological thriller Death Game, a film that I have to believe, even with Keanu’s absence, must be better. I believe Keanu can play anyone, but that doesn’t mean he should. Keanu was born to play the hero, the fighter, the protector, the gentle defender. To watch John Wick be victimized and manipulated like that? Did not compute. But to see him save a falling elevator full of people while chewing gum? That felt right. Speed was one of the most stressful and thrilling viewing experiences of my life. I’m fairly certain I’m the last person to have seen this movie but for those who do not know, this movie follows a stunting, fronting, death-defying officer Keanu, who must save a bus full of people being held hostage by Dennis Hopper the domestic terrorist. The bus is rigged with a bomb that becomes armed the second the bus hits 50mph and then is set to detonate if the bus goes below 50mph. Can you think of a more stressful premise? Because it only becomes more stressful from that point on. My palms were on my head the entire time, my teeth grinding with each moment of near-death excitement. I could quite literally not look away, and it wasn’t just because of Keanu. There’s so many innovative, ambitious stunts here, and so many memorable performances from an unbeatably good cast. Keanu and Sandra Bullock and Dennis Hopper and Jeff Daniels and Alan Ruck and the grandma from Napoleon Dynamite very briefly? Forget about it. Iconic. Inspired. Suspenseful. Even with Keanu’s calming aura, I felt unprepared for each twist and turn this film would implement next. Keanu, that crazy beautiful son of a bitch did 90% of his own stunts in this movie, and (in addition to Point Break) fully cemented his spot as an action hero here. Keanu delivers — and then some — with his performances, I don’t care what anyone else says, and Speed was the perfect vehicle so to speak for him to showcase his action chops. In Sandra Bullock’s first major film role, she is instantly likable and instantly magnetic. I, too, would try to flirt with Keanu were I in this situation and I just really appreciated that the film didn’t try to pretend like Keanu’s beauty wasn’t at a distracting level of gorge. With Keanu and Sandra’s undeniable chemistry that even rivals his chemistry with Winona Ryder and Patrick Swayze, Speed is as much as a romantic comedy as it is a high-stakes thrill ride, which I loved. This seemed to be the little action movie that could: running out of money, losing faith from production studios, and 20th Century Fox Studio heads losing their absolute minds to the point of wanting to post-pone production when they saw that Keanu had gotten a buzzcut — nevertheless, Speed persisted! It is wacky and wild and even by action movie standards, heart-poundingly tense. For any Keanu purist like myself, do yourself a favor and watch Speed, and avoid Knock Knock. I’d recommend just about any other film from his resume, in fact. As the temperatures drop and the holidays begin, I highly recommend keeping yourself warm with some hearty Keanu cinema. It’s good for the soul. Happy Keanusgiving!