I have to say I still find it a bit strange just how well the Wick fights scene fall into thirty second chunks, which is especially true about the fight AFTER this one. That being said, we end the action here at Red Circle neatly at the 55:00 mark with John staggering out of the club, people fleeing before him like he’s a kaiju.
We opened at the point Kirill and John are grappling against a table next to the railing of the balcony, a table set with glasses and a wine bottle. One of the things that attracted people about the Wick character is his mix of vulnerable humanity (loving his wife, his dog(s), the fact that he takes hits a loses fights) and his relentless Robocop/movie killer forward motion through the plot of each movie.
For the record, while the human body can take a lot more punishment than people think, John Wick should be dead a few times in each of his movies. There is nothing realistic about his ability to soak up damage: his ‘plot armor’ reads damage sponge/refuse to fall on the tag.
But here, a fresh and feisty Kirill has clearly gotten the better of the hurting, sweaty, out of breath John. So John is done with fancy: pinning Kirill to that table top he just rams his hand into Kirill’s face, one presumes hoping for an eye gouge.
So Kirill smartly smashes that wine bottle on John’s arm and stabs him with the pointy bits. It’s established this does damage, even through the ballistic vest John is wearing, which is actually realistic: “bullet-proof” vests (they aren’t) are strangely vulnerable to pierce injuries, due to the concentration of impact force into a VERY small area, combined with the usually sustained pressure of a stabbing motion. That combo will often penetrate the fiber layers designed to dissipate the force of a bullet — a relatively larger surface area weapon.
Then Kirill just heaves John up and over the railing to the club floor below. That throw is one long shot, with no cut, so it’s 100% Keanu’s stunt double (he rolls his face away from camera when he hits ) and owwwwwww. Stunt people are very very dedicated.
John then pulls his last resort holdout gun from the small of his back … and here the Internet Movie Firearms Database fails me because it’s not mentioned. I assume it’s another Glock, the major handgun used by both sides of this particular fight but I’d love to find out. Hit me up on Twitter (@tgshepherdvan) if you know what it is.
In any case he shoots up at the watching Kirill, breaking the glass of the railing and Kirill flees. Cut to Iose in the car he left the club in, dialling a number frantically.
As a bloody, damaged John Wick staggers out of the front door of the club, we hear a phone ring in his pocket and he answers it. It’s Iosef, demanding to know where Victor is. John growls out “Victor’s dead. Everything’s got a PRICE” in Russian — throwing Iosef’s words back in his face — then discards the phone.
Exit the Red Circle fight, pursued by an assassin.
Next up we’ll be going back to the first chapter of this blog and tackling the best fight in the movie, Perkins vs Wick, from beginning to end.