“Can a man like you know peace?”: Classical Allusion in *John Wick: Chapter 2*

In 2017, Antonio Canova’s Hercules and Lichas made a surprising appearance as a set piece in the hyper-stylish, hyper-violent Keanu Reeves vehicle John Wick: Chapter 2. Throughout repeated scenes in a fictive museum in New York City, a display of the monumental Canova group and other neoclassical works served as framing devices for encounters between the superhuman John Wick and central antagonist Santino D’Antonio (these scenes were filmed at the Galleria d’arte Moderna in Rome). This paper will look at the use of antique and neoclassical settings and works of art within the film as visual elements that support not only the characterization of the central character as a Herculean figure, but the association of ‘classical’ forms and spaces with power, authority, and violent regimes. This will demonstrate that far from being a mindless action movie, the film’s use of the art gallery and archaeological settings develop a sophisticated intertextual relationship with antique material and narratives. Even character’s names, such as Ares (Ruby Rose, as a deaf contract killer), Charon, and Helen (John Wick’s dead wife who only appears as an image in video), underscore the complex classical allusions within the film. Rather than the stylized militarism and hypermasculinity of 300, John Wick 2’s reception and redeployment of the ancient world is multi-temporal, multi-faceted, and multi-gendered. The visual and narrative allusions to the classical world suggests that violent men and women cannot know peace, as the titular John Wick is asked at the beginning of the film.