I liked after the burglary, how all his friends, and even the cop, were talking all that macho stuff about “If it were my family…”.
I think it is the kind of thing people would say, despite official advice often being the opposite, and I thought the movie was going to do something interesting with that. e.g. He starts trying to live up to some manliness ideal, or, perhaps something happens later to vindicate his decision to de-escalate and show why the vigilante attitude can be flawed.
Instead, the movie changed, and ultimately heartily embraced macho and vigilante culture.
This is the first time I’ve seen Michael Ironside since “See you at the party, Richter” Richter in Total Recall. Man, he’s changed…
ETA: Actually I remember him in Starship Troopers too, which was later.
That’s the thing - I think like, 95-100% of it isn’t parody. The writer clearly borrowed a lot of ideas from his own John Wick, and there are cliche action scenes, but I think it’s supposed to be serious the vast majority of the time, until the end when, as another poster described, you get the John Wick Home Alone sequence. The movie isn’t intended to be tongue in cheek, but it devolves into campy silliness at times. It sort of doesn’t know what it is.
The movie is now only a $3 streaming rental for Amazon Prime members. I liked John Wick, and this was obviously very much in the same vein, from the same creator, and for only $3, it definitely seemed worth a rental, so I just watched it. I had pretty much exactly the same reaction as @SenorBeef in Post #16.
Our local library is open again for browsing, so we rented it on DVD for $0. And we got what we paid for!
Seriously, I went in with no great expectations, didn’t try to take it too seriously, and was entertained. I mean, the trope that one person could possibly be this unstoppable killing machine, no matter how many other highly trained killing machines are thrown at them, is pretty silly if you really put any thought into it at all. So I just turned the nit-picky part of my brain off and enjoyed the ride.
I’m pleased Mr. Odenkirk has been occupying himself during the pandemic . I’m hopeful his recent health scare is nothing dire. I am beyond sad that the final season of Better Call Saul has been endlessly endlessly delayed, if it has been made at all.
