The John Wick films are dark films.

In film one, Wick, played by Keanu Reeves, is a hitman who retired from heavy dirty work because he found love. He met a woman who changed him, and gave him a reason to leave the raw, ugly underworld he had made a life in. Wick had pulled off an impossible last gig and as a result, the bigs in that underworld declared him untouchable. He could live a normal life with the love of his life without the fear of recriminations, without a fear of his past bleeding into his future. At least, he thought.

But then tragedy came. His wife, the savior of his soul, was taken by illness.

While fresh in grief shortly after her death, she delivered a last gift to him: a beagle puppy to love.

And then darkness stepped in.

A bratty punk son of a Russian mobster chose to steal Wick’s car, and in the home invasion, he also chose to kill Wick’s puppy. Wick’s last attachment to his lost wife, to good in his life, to reform.

And the switch flips in Wick.

All he knows at that point is vengeance- and that the violator must die. And through his contacts in the underworld, he quickly knows who the kid is- and Wick sets out to destroy his world and everyone in it.

I don’t consider myself a violent or aggressive person. I hate hearing about suffering and death on the news. But I also find myself unaffected by the brutality in these films.

Not totally. Some of it is pretty extreme. But mostly.

I think part of it is because it is a re-enactment of the age old mythical struggle of good against bad. In Wick’s case, he was a guy trying to put his life right, and he was arbitrarily chosen to be violated. An innocent, dependent animal was killed.

And in the film, Wick is capable of providing justice.

Most of us don’t have the power to right most of the wrongs done against us in life. We are each victimized at times in life when we have no response, which leaves us vulnerable and fearful and frozen.

Wick doesn’t think about what else the violator might do to him. He ignores consequences and takes matters in his own hands, and chases the results he demands. He is too busy correcting the situation to be a victim.

Before the action picks up in the first film, after his dog is killed, we see Wick’s back as he stands under a shower. It is covered in some tattoos, and written from shoulder to shoulder is the Latin phrase “Fortes fortuna adiuvat”.

It is a summary of the philosophy that got him through his shadow years as “the Boogeyman” underground. And it informs his present state of mind.

“Fortune favors the daring.”

I am not saying I endorse violence or vengeance, or the ethic of punishment and payback.

But there is something to be said for deciding a course and chasing it out, forgetting all else, diving full in, and in spite for consequences, doing what you know you have to do, and being fully focused on it until the deed is done.

“Purity of heart is to will one thing”, Kierkegaard noted.

Sometimes you have to just decide and go, despite the fact you know it will cost you.

That is accepted by the daring.