30 Seconds of Wick Chapter 15 (54:00-54:30): High Kicks Are For Rockettes
Wick is hiding behind a pillar, chest heaving from the pain of those torso shots he took in the last thirty seconds. Keanu looks sweaty and disheveled, one would assume partially from the high fever he was running when they shot this scene, partially to show that John’s calm and control are breaking down around […]
30 Seconds of Wick Chapter 13: He’s Wearing Body Armor, He’s Not A Moron (53:30-54:00)
Sorry about the delay on new posts, crippling depression tends to cut my productivity. Anyhow, 53:30 opens as John Wick takes two bullets to the torso from Kirill and a goon and of course he’s wearing body armor. One thing about the Wick franchise that’s been very refreshing is its tendency to respect the physics […]
30 Seconds of Wick Chapter 12: That’s Certainly A Mustache (53:00-53:30)
I love this section of the fight, both for the nonchalant way they just let squib blood splatter across the perspex protecting the camera lens (happens multiple times throughout the movie) and for the way the stunt crew here works their asses off to make Keanu look like a god. On the strategy/tactics side of […]
30 Seconds of Wick Chapter 11: Bringing BJJ to a gunfight (52:30-53:00)
There are a number of “Interesting Facts About John Wick” listicles out there. (http://www.hollywood.com/movies/x-facts-you-didnt-know-about-john-wick-60646890/ served as source for me here) Among the things one learns is that Keanu Reeves had a 104 degree fever due to the flu during the shooting of the “upper floor” of the Russian Nightclub scene, which we are in the […]
30 Seconds of Wick Chapter 10: Gunplay (52:00-52:30)
Well, Iosef made it upstairs and out another door. He’s about to miss out on one of the most chaotic, innovative and interesting fight scenes ever captured on film. It is a seamless integration of gunplay, physicality from both the star and the stunt team, hand-to-hand and realism. People RELOAD THEIR WEAPONS. The second floor […]
30 Seconds of Wick Chapter 9: Dance Floor (51:30-52:00)
We’re about to get into the meat of the most iconic fight scene of this movie, the dance floor of the Red Circle. Iosef, clutching his towel and impotently waving a gun he never fires, staggers through the crowd of dancers, heading for security at the far side of the dance floor. For a moment, […]
30 Seconds of Wick Chapter 8 : Plot Armor (51:00-51:30)
This will be a shorter entry as there isn’t really a lot of fighting in this bite of the movie. John Wick has just refused to shoot Iosef through his human shield and that has delayed everything long enough for the cavalry to arrive. Just before that happens, Iosef is fleeing past a series of […]
30 Seconds of Wick Chapter 8: Masculine vs Macho 50:30-51:00
I have this saying that I think is relevant to both Keanu Reeves and John Wick, and especially relevant in THIS thirty seconds of John Wick the movie. “A masculine guy knows he is a man; a macho guy is terrified he’s NOT.” (And let me be clear I don’t feel a man is defined […]
Chapter 7: Shades of Blue and Red 50:00 – 50:30
The Russian Nightclub is the iconic fight of the Wick movies. Not my favourite—that belongs to my lethal lady Perkins—but there isn’t really any way to describe how instant the impact of this section of the movie was. It’s a seamless integration of gun, knife and hand combat, shot in a kinetic, grounded way. It […]
Prologue: Russian Nightclub 48:00-50:00
The Russian Nightclub “fight scene” in John Wick became almost instantly one of the greatest set pieces ever put on film. It’s the ultimate expression of what “Gun-Fu” should be. (Gun-Fu is a term from the Christian Bale movie Equilibrium that posits a kind of close combat martial art with hand guns involving an instantaneous, […]