I saw John Wick Chapter 2 last night and frankly nothing in the world could possibly compare to the joy and excitement I felt/ continue to feel. But it’s Fake Movie Friday and that means I have work to do. This is a bit of a mad caper, lots of characters and shitty comedy bits that I won’t be flushing out. Title comes from a bunch of great ones Tigs gave me last week. The Sharon Stone to my Albert Brooks.
Barrel of Monkeys
We open on complete darkness. A mechanical hatch opens above us and we see the outline of some cargo, specifically a barrel where our focus stays. A crane comes in and picks it up and we find ourselves on the docks of NYC. The barrel is brought off the ship and loaded into the back of a truck with some other goods. The truck drives off. It is stopped by a man, who we’ll come to know as Sam, who hijacks it. He’s pretty polite while he does it.
Sam brings the truck to a warehouse where some mafia types start unloading some of the nicer goods. They leave the barrel and Sam is instructed to torch the truck by the boss Don Sabella. The Don thanks Sam who he has come to depend on for little jobs like this. He offers him more dangerous work but Sam turns him down as he usually does. Before Sam torches the truck he notices the barrel and finds a ton of monkey statues. He takes two of them out.
He heads home and is greeted by Bianca and her daughter Sophie. Bianca is the wife of a mafia tough named Sonny, who we saw Sam afraid of in the warehouse. They are having an affair and she tells him that she’s had enough and leaving Sonny. They are moving in with Sam. Sam wants them too but its not the best time, it would be dangerous. They leave and Sam heads out.
A group of Yakuza types meet with Don Sabella and his men. There is an argument over the barrel of monkey’s that was suppose to be included in the shipment. One of them was solid gold. Sonny was in charge of the unloading and says they were junk. Don Sabella gets infuriated with him and sends him to track down the truck. He finds the burnt truck but all of the monkeys in the barrel have melted none of them apparently the right one.
Sonny tracks down Sam and asks about the monkeys. Sam says he took two of them but can only find one. Sonny gets angry and then notices Sophie’s homework or something on Sam’s table and gets mad. Sam runs.
We cut to Sophie’s school and it is show and tell and she has the other actual golden monkey. Sam doesn’t know she has it. Sam is now on the run from the entire mob, Sonny specifically, and yakuza. He runs up against them all in hilarious madcap situations as well as some hilariously corrupt cops. Also these cops are pretty racist and its played for jokes with the yakuza.
He heads to Bianca’s and asks her about it. He is met by Sonny and before they fight Sonny breaks down crying to Bianca. He feels bad for mistreating her and he’s not really that much of a tough guy. He understands he did wrong and wants them to be happy. He agrees to help protect Sam for Bianca.
The head to Sophie’s school where they are met by Yakuza. Sonny fights them while Sam gets the monkey. He tells Sam to run to Don Sabella. Sam gets there to find Sabella and the Yakuza ready for war. He gets caught in between them and the now arriving dumb cops. They all end up dead or arrested not seeing Sam sneak out.
He picks up Bianca and Sophie for them all to run a way together with the monkey to help get them started. He gives a nice speech in the car and begins to drive off. We hear a loud bang. He stops the car, gets out realizing he left the monkey on the roof. He runs out the car to go get it. Back in the car he kisses Bianca and says oops.