It began in 2014, with a dead dog. A gift arranged to be given to retired hitman John Wick (Keanu Reeves) by his wife, Helen (Bridget Moynahan), after her death, the beagle puppy was killed by the impetuous, bratty son of a Russian mobster. And so the retired hitman unretired, went on a revenge killing spree, and gave us a new, stylish action franchise. In the hands of director Chad Stahelski (and, for the first film, David Leitch, both of them stuntmen), the John Wick movies have built an elaborate, ritualized criminal underworld, while also consistently elevating the level of action spectacle, bringing it to an art form.

John Wick: Chapter 4 continues this trend, while adding an unexpected depth to the title character and franchise. It opens with Wick up against impossible odds. His actions in the previous two films have turned virtually the entirety of the criminal underworld, ruled over by the mysterious High Table (in this movie embodied by the Marquis Vincent de Gramont, a snarling young aristocrat played by Bill Skarsgård) against him. Wick’s solution to this problem: to kill his way out of it.

What follows is among the most glorious displays of action filmmaking yet committed to screen. Those wondering whether John Wick: Chapter 4 would measure up to the thrills of previous entries need only behold a balletic display centered at the Arc de Triomphe, a single-take, aerial-view display of Wick’s murder-journey through a run-down Parisian apartment (aided by exploding bullets), and one of the most arduous staircase climbs in film to understand how John Wick: Chapter 4 has turned action choreography into an art. The movie’s ambitions in this area are helped by well-placed allusions to its models: a match cut from Lawrence of Arabia, a smooth-talking DJ from The Warriors, and some Throne of Blood–style bow-and-arrow combat in a Japan-set scene. But John Wick: Chapter 4 would have failed to merit these ambitious references without the talents of Stahelski, who seems committed to using everything he has learned as a stuntman in service of consistently upping the action ante. Maybe stuntmen should direct more movies.

Also helpful in John Wick: Chapter4’s artistic ambitions: a stacked cast. Reeves’s taciturn badassery may anchor the franchise, but the supporting talent fills it out. This has been true from the beginning. Ian McShane, Laurence Fishburne, the (sadly) late Lance Reddick, and others have been memorable as Wick allies; and Michael Nyqvist, Common, and others have been striking as Wick foes. But John Wick 4 brings even more: Japanese action star Hiroyuki Sanada as another old friend of John; Donnie Yen as John’s old friend turned designated killer; and Clancy Brown (perhaps best known as the voice of Mr. Krabs in SpongeBob SquarePants) lending his gravitas to the proceedings as the High Table’s neutral arbiter. (Yes, Sanada and Yen face off.)

It would be more than enough if this were all John Wick 4 offered. But somehow, an ultraviolent action film also manages to be small-c conservative, perhaps even religious. The highly ritualized criminal underground easily reinforces the former quality. Brutal as it is, it is governed by rules, heavily informed by tradition and custom. And these rules have teeth. Indeed, in certain respects, the drama of John Wick 4 is defined by its hero’s and its villain’s relationships to tradition. To escape the mess his own rule-breaking has put him in, John seeks recourse in old ways (a duel), which requires a return to his “family” (the criminal sect that raised him) to obtain their sanction, according to High Table precepts. By contrast, the Marquis, though an aristocrat, partakes of the trappings of his title but is impatient, arrogant, and seeking to adapt to a changing world. It proves his undoing. At the same time, various characters have ties of friendship and family that are held to supersede even these storied codes. There is an almost reactionary undercurrent to all of this.

And perhaps even a Christian one. The first words spoken in John Wick: Chapter 4 quote the inscription on the door to hell in Dante’s Inferno. The climax of the film takes place at the Sacré-Coeur, a Catholic church in Paris. The aforementioned long climb up the stairs involves repeated obstacles and stumbles — a kind of action-movie Via Dolorosa. John even gets a Simon of Cyrene to help him up the stairs. And in perhaps the most on-the-nose touch, three characters take a journey on a boat along an underground river while discussing someone named Charon. (Okay, that’s Greek mythology, but you get the idea.) John Wick even says, “Amen.”

There’s too much of this for it to be mere window-dressing. Rather, it helps to reinforce the essential struggle of John Wick: Chapter 4: whether violence can be redemptive. What we see on-screen in the opening montage, during which Dante is quoted, is Wick repeatedly punching a bag, to the point of bloodying his knuckles. Might it indicate a kind of ironic yet purifying punishment (what Dante calls contrapasso)? John Wick: Chapter 4 makes clear what other entries have already established: Killing is in John’s nature, and death is his almost-certain fate. Can anything good ever come of that? The very prospect of an answer in the affirmative raises the specter of a kind of action-film Pelagianism, or some other dangerous heresy. (This is a film in which a priest blasts someone with a shotgun, after all.) Even so, the movie somehow makes it work; John ultimately commits an act of violence that is both liberating for him and benevolent for others.

How does John Wick: Chapter 4 achieve something even resembling a moral vision? By returning to the core of the franchise: Wick’s wife. Scarcely on-screen throughout the franchise, though the initial impetus for John’s retirement (he was released from his obligations at the cost of violence thought impossible to achieve), Helen in this installment becomes the almost Dantean core of Wick’s character, guiding him through his torments to something higher. One action-free scene (in a church, no less, as Wick lights a candle for his wife) near the end of the movie involves a discussion of the afterlife. Wick’s interlocutor believes the dead are truly gone, a view Wick himself shares — though he admits he could be wrong, hence his need to pay tribute. Pascal’s wager in an action film? All that and more — that’s John Wick: Chapter 4. Not bad for something that started with a dead dog.