30 Seconds of Wick Chapter 23: This Isn’t A Fight (1:29:30-1:31:00 plus a bit more)
This last fight isn’t really a fight. It’s a Shakespearean tragedy played out in minutes of screen time. So I’m going to do the whole thing in one post. There isn’t a great deal about it that’s interesting or sophisticated fighting, not like Wick’s desperate war with Perkins or his slaying of Kirill. This isn’t […]
30 Seconds of Wick Chapter 22: Short and Sweet (1:12:00-1:12:35)
Ninety five seconds. That’s how much screen time the second best fight of the movie takes up (I mean, give or take — that’s just my timing). This is a short, sharp, brutal battle — and as a consequence remains the most realistic of the fights, only edging the Perkins battle out because they literally […]
30 Seconds of Wick Chapter 21: The Last Range is the Ground (1:11:30-1:12:00)
(Author’s Note: I’m going to try to get several chapters posted today, for release once a day for the next while, then move onto my interim one-off post 30 Seconds Without Fear about one of the most interesting fights in the Netflix Daredevil) My title for this chapter is a bit of an inside joke […]
30 Seconds of Wick Chapter 20: Wick is Back (1:11:00-1:11:30)
Dichotomies are interesting in narrative. The scene I’ll be covering for the next few chapters is both one of the most technically accomplished and interesting fights in a movie packed with great fight scenes but also the most contrived. We’re in the under renovation church fight, the one that includes the iconic Keanu raging snarl […]
30 Seconds of Wick Chapter 18 (Repost of Chapter 1) Perkins Takes A Bite (58:25-58:55)
Perkins Vs John Wick (58:25-58:55) This was my inaugural post because of a coincidence. I was asked twice in one month by random people if I knew why Perkins uses her teeth hold her jacket during this fight. It’s a moment that watching it I thought “Maybe five percent of the people watching this are […]
30 Second of Wick Chapter 17: The Best Fight Begins (57:55-58:25)
We’ve finally caught up to the best fight in this movie. Yes, I’ll say it again: as good as Red Circle is, Perkins vs Wick is the best fight of the movie and possibly the best fight in the three movies so far. I covered the second segment of this fight (58:25-58:55) back in my […]
30 Seconds of Wick Chapter 16: Annnnnndddd…scene (54:30-55:00)
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 […]
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 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, […]