The Big Picture - The Keanu Reeves Hall of Fame and ‘John Wick: Chapter 4’

Episode Date: March 24, 2023

To celebrate the fourth installment of the 'John Wick' franchise, Sean and Amanda build Keanu Reeves’s hall of fame (9:00) before breaking down the new action epic (55:30). Then, Sean is joined by the director of ‘JW4,’ Chad Stahelski, to discuss how they pulled off the film’s breathtaking action (1:17:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Chad Stahelski Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's no secret the NFL has a problem with race. Think Colin Kaepernick. Think Brian Flores. But this isn't a new problem. It's one that started as far back as the 1930s with a ban on Black players in the NFL, with a past that informs the present. Blackballed is a new miniseries podcast from The Ringer

about the four men who broke the color barrier in football. I'm your host, Chelsea Stark-Jones. You can find Blackballed on The Ringer NFL feed. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit Superstore.ca to get started. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about Keanu. Today marks the release of John Wick Chapter 4, the epic new entry in the Wick story. Later in the show, the director of John Wick Chapter 4, Chad Stah entry in the Wick story. Later in the show, the director of

John Wick Chapter 4, Chad Stahelski, is back on the show. He's joining me to talk about the breathtaking action and stunt work achieved in this crazy awesome movie. But first, I thought we could commemorate the latest Wick movie with a tribute to Keanu Reeves, who is one of our favorite actors and someone we have probably not spent enough time talking about on this show. So we're going to build his hall of fame, and then we're going to talk a little bit more in depth about John Wick Chapter 4. So starting with the Hall of Fame, then the movie. How are you feeling about this change of pace? It's great. It's inclusive. That way, people who are really psychotic about spoilers don't have to fast forward, which I know is a

stressful thing for them. You know, Bobby puts a lot of work into those time codes, but apparently people can't respect them. No, it's good. And I guess we can talk about John Wick 4. It's inclusion in the Hall of Fame or non-inclusion without spoiling it too much. That's what I was thinking. Yeah. By the time we get to his final film and his filmography, we'll be able to bridge that conversation to this new movie. So let's talk about Keanu. Keanu, of course, a staple of American movies and international cinema for

almost about 40 years. I mean, he really is one of the linchpin mainstream figures. I mean, he got his start in the early 80s and he's kind of done it all. And he is, of course, like a singular movie star figure. And I think what kind of actor he is is something I wanted to talk to you about. You know, when I think of Keanu, I think most people think of Woe and The Matrix and this kind of awestruck, maybe not intellectually sophisticated character, but this incredible vessel for ideas. And I think he's more complicated than that. I think the sort of parody version of Keanu is much different than the actual man himself

and the performer that he is. What do you think of when you think of Keanu? I think that what you just said is a part of him, but also sells him short. And the parody aspect of Keanu, the way that you know that it's a parody is because Keanu Reeves himself has gotten in on the parody several times.

There is, you know, everything from the movie Keanu Reeves himself has gotten in on the parody several times. There is, you know, everything from the movie Keanu where he voices a cat to Always Be My Maybe where he has like an extended cameo playing on the idea of Keanu Reeves. And he's done that thing several times that you and I both like with actors, which is that they play with the idea of themselves. But he also never does it in a self-serious way. He is, if he does it, he's in on the joke. And the rest of the time, I find him to just be like a very calming and, but also kind of alluring presence. You know, there's something going on there, as you wrote

in the document, which I think is also, I had thought of the same phrase still waters run deep you know and there's something it's not almost unattainable but he makes you want to lean in um and he's one of those guys that does not talk very much but not in an annoying way which is very hard to do it's just that there's kind of this other, it's almost just like there's another place that is like the Keanu place and you want to be part of it. He's honestly just like very cool also. He's incredibly cool.

In a way that very few people are. It's sort of personified in him and it's the interest in things, but the lack of effort and the presence and obviously also like quite beautiful but just everybody kind of wants to be near him yeah i think his beauty preceded him at the outset of his career and over time i think he has become more known as a physical performer because he's become really one of the generational action stars of his time. But he didn't, that wasn't really how he started. He started as more of a kind of comedic, dramatic, comedic actor.

And over time, in part because of movies like Speed and then especially The Matrix, he has evolved. But as I was listening to you talk about what you think of when you think of him, the person who I was reminded of was Steve McQueen, you know, that, uh, and that, you know, McQueen famously was the person who would look at scripts and he would start to cross out lines of dialogue that his character had because he just sits, he thought I could communicate what is being said on the page just with my face. And Keanu is a very similar kind of performer. And in the John Wick movies, I feel like he, even though those movies are getting longer and longer, I feel like his dialogue is becoming lessened through each film because you don't really need to say it. We know who that character is because he conveys something powerful without speaking. And even in John Wick 4, when he does say something, it's like he's almost leaning into the John Wick delivery of it.

Which, again, is that knowingness, which I think with so many people can feel irritating or self-aggrandizing. And with Keanu, it's just a guy who's here, like, give it any way you want, but in a, it's a cool way. Yeah, I was thinking about the difference between different forms of art. And, like, some art forms are craftsperson art forms and other art forms are like singular mediums. So have me thinking about painting. And some actors are paint and some actors are canvases. Keanu is a canvas. You know, Keanu is somebody that with the right filmmaker

can have all of the color projected onto him. And if he's working with the right filmmaker, you might walk out thinking Keanu is the best movie star we've ever had. You know, like if he's working with someone who's less gifted, you know, Keanu has a lot of mediocre movies under his belt too. Mediocre to bad, but in a comforting way, there's nothing, preparing for this podcast was just, I honestly just like typed Keanu Reeves into various search engines and just like pulled up and I was like, oh, I'll watch 20 minutes of this and I'll watch like a half hour of this. That's what I did. And you know, some of that

just speaks to like the longevity of his career and this place that he has in the like movies we grew up on. He's just like infrastructure at that, you know, he's part of it, but he tries things as well. And it's like, if it works, it works. And if it doesn't, it's never his fault. And it's never like a really, really bad time with the exception. Well, it's never his fault. How about that? Well, no, he's never, there's never been a thought. Like we had this conversation about Adam Driver earlier this week.

And I think Adam Driver is an interesting counterpoint. I think he's much more actorly than Keanu is, but he has a similar kind of physical bearing. And, you know, we were kind of, I was concerned trolling Adam Driver about maybe the lack of success of his last couple of movies. I don't feel like Keanu ever slipped into that zone. We don't have the same weight of anxiety that comes with him as a performer. I don't think we're, you know, reimagining history there, right? Like, can you think of a moment when it felt like he was going to slip out? Because every time it seems like he might slip out, he makes The Matrix or he makes John Wick. He never lets go.

I guess there was a phase from the mid 2000s to John Wick. Like 2005-6 to 2014. Is that right? Yes, that's when John Wick came out. But it's like, you could concern troll him.

Maybe we weren't in the business of concern you know, concern trolling actors in that way. But he had kind of jump-started his career enough times. Right. That you were like, eh, he'll figure it out. Right. If he had phased out at that time, you'd be like, well, he made three Matrix movies. Yeah. He got as high as you can go on the mountaintop if he just wants a soft pedal.

And at that time, too, he produced that documentary side by side and he seemed to be entering a kind of eminence gree moment of his career and then john wick changed it all over again and restarted it so let's do the hall of fame i mean he's got a huge career we've got a lot of films to go through he's got a lot of movies i haven't seen same especially in the last 10 years and that was with clicking through at like there are a lot of movies I have seen. This is going to be a hard one. Yeah. So let's just get...

But also, maybe we don't have to overthink it. Okay. I'm down with that. Okay. I think there's going to be a couple that are points of debate. As there are with all of these. Yeah. First film, Youngblood, 1986.

I've seen this film. Okay. It's not in the Hall of Fame. Okay. That's not in the Hall of Fame. Okay, that's fine. You're going to hear me say something akin to that through many of these early films. Early movies, yeah. Same thing with Flying. He effectively starts out as a supporting actor in the earliest stages of his career,

even though I think Hollywood knew that he had the height, grace, and power to carry movies. He's so really young also in these. He looks so young in the early... Yeah. 1986, River's Edge. This is a tricky one. I revisited this movie last night. This is probably the best movie

at the outset of his career. It's a complicated story about a teenage stoner who kills his girlfriend. And then his friends rally to sort of not dime on their friend. And it becomes this complicated story about mid-80s teenagerhood.

Crispin Glover is effectively the star and he gives an absolutely insane performance. And Keanu is his close friend. And Keanu is the friend who is more emotionally conflicted about not revealing what this other friend has done, played by daniel roebuck keanu is not the main force of the movie but i think the movie is remembered because

in part because of keanu's fame it's the first one where i'm like this is a yellow because it's an important artifact of 1980s culture it's basically like a rejection of the breakfast club and john hughes and it's like the other side of the teenage story and the kind of teenage panic of the 1980s so i want to just yellow this even though I know Keanu has a very big career to come that we're going to dig into. Right, that it's not going to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whether it makes it or not. I think if he were in the Crispin Glover part, it might be a little easier to say that this is definitely in.

Okay, 1988, The Night Before. This is not in. 1988, Permanent Record. This is not in. 1988, The Prince of Pennsylvania. This is not in 1988 the prince of pennsylvania this is not in then we get to dangerous liaisons where he plays le chevalier rafael sure don't see me yeah this is a supporting part yeah we can't put it in in a great movie such a great movie also such an insane 80s i mean

what a decade we were born in is he remind me in this. Is he in pursuit of Uma Thurman's character or of Glenn Close's character? I thought Uma Thurman, but I did not revisit this. I can't recall if Glenn Close uses him at a certain point. They use each other. Yes. But I think that he... If I remember incorrectly, and this is i'm bringing this is bad uh literature reader i think he's the cello teacher role from cruel intentions which i'm sorry to everyone he is the

music teacher yeah exactly yeah um okay let's yellow dangerous liaisons for the just because it is probably the most notable and and seen film that he's made up until this point and this is the film that in part gets him the role as uh ted logan in bill and ted's excellent adventure which is where are you at on bill and ted i don't know if we've ever had that discussion i once had keanu and and alex on this show to talk about bill and very charmed yeah Yeah. Like, you know, it still kind of makes me laugh. Like, I did watch part of this again and I wasn't, like, laughing out loud,

but I was chuckling to myself. It is definitively in the Hall of Fame. Yeah. It's a hard green. They're so cute. Yeah, they're great. I was a bit cowed talking to Keanu and during the interview,

he started answering a question very seriously and I was like had a big smile on my face and he literally said to me like no I'm serious like he was like mad he thought I was making fun

of him or something and I was like I just can't believe I'm in the presence of one of my faves okay so Bill and Ted is in it's not the last

we'll hear from Bill and Ted 1989 Parenthood this is a supporting part he plays Todd yeah Martha Plimpton's boyfriend, I believe. Sounds right. He's like the 14th lead in the movie, but he's very memorable from the movie.

Right, but it's like one of those things where it's like retroactive. Like you go back and you're like, oh, and they got Keanu Reeves to do this thing. So do you think, okay, but like that is a movie that probably introduced him to a wide mainstream American audience. So when we think about the halls of fame, I think what makes them fun is like what makes them controversial. Yellow it for sure. Okay. But, you know, this is always the thing. It's like we can do the honorable mentions as we go, but I don't know that we're going to have room.

Let me see where Keanu is listed as. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, ninth from the top lead. Interesting. Do you remember that Joaquin Phoenix was identified as Leaf Phoenix in the credits for this film? Yes, I do. Kind of amazing. Yeah. Okay.

Parenthood is yellowed for now. I love you to death. A completely forgotten Lawrence Kasdan movie that is not bad. That I like. Okay. That I watched some of to remember this film, Kevin Kline movie. Um,

but it's not in the hall of fame. 1990. Also tune in tomorrow. One of his first worried about Kevin Kline's legacy. I feel like we as a, no, I mean, I'm not,

I know it's wonderful, but I feel like we as a culture, as we move on, aren't respecting and remembering Kevin Kline enough. He doesn't want it. I mean, that's the thing. Kevin D. Kline, that was his nickname. Right.

And he didn't take on big star parts in the 90s because he was raising a family and wanted to work in theater. Sure, but there's a lot of great work out there that we just kind of shrug at. And then you revisited it and you're like, oh, yeah. Oh, he's amazing. He's wonderful.

His son, Owen, joined me on the pod last year. I remember. He's having a great time. Tune in tomorrow is a big leading part for keanu and it's not a movie that's going in but in 1991 point break comes along absolutely catherine bigelow's five-star masterpiece this was one where i was like i'll just watch like 20 minutes you know i let me tell you i watched the whole thing johnny utah there was a johnny utah joke in a movie like two weeks ago i can't even remember what movie it was but this movie persists yeah 30 years old and uh it still rocks do you ever date a surfer no well i would just geographically that was sort of that was tough

for me by the time i was out in la i was you know already engaged are you considering it now no zach actually had a short stint as a surfer and you know him he's sort of like annoyingly athletic in that way so he like he was good at it until he injured himself yeah the shoulder he has like a shoulder thing and and so he had to just it popped out while he was surfing and he had to lie on the board all on the way and that ended zach's surfing career surfing and then dangerous started his golf career which i would really prefer that the surfing career. Surfing is dangerous. And then started his golf career, which I would really prefer that the surfing career had continued. But here we are. I've surfed. I enjoy surfing. Yeah. I wouldn't say I'm very good at it, but it's fun. I never have. And I think I would like to be the type of person. That's what I want for myself. So you can join a ring of bank robbers? Is that

why you want to get into it? Well, they do have panache, you know? They have Patrick Swayze. Yeah, both things. No, I mean, you know, I love the beach. I love the ocean. I love being in the water. I'm terrified of waves, so I can't surf, right? It's going to be an issue. Also, I can't see, as you know, unless I have contacts, but I think contacts and surfing,

I don't really know how that works. So I would love to be able to overcome both of those things and to not be the type of person who's so terrified that she won't surf. You very earnestly answered my question. I'm seeing a ringer video idea where me and Amanda just recreate the forgetting Sarah Marshall, Paul Rudd, learning how to surf scene. We can fly us to Hawaii, get a big budget for it. Come on, what do you say, Sean? Yeah, I'll call Daniel Lack, see what he says.

Okay, sounds good. You know, Barbarian Days is like the best boy book I've ever read. Yeah, the William Finnegan. God, yeah. Incredible, incredible book. If you haven't read it,

we talk, I feel like we bring it up once a year. One of my favorite books. And like, and so good also for like the things that aren't in the book. I mean, it's obviously an amazing book.

And then there'll be one sentence where he's like, and you know, then I, you know, infiltrated the like secret service in like Chile for a year or whatever. And you're like, what? Has a lot in common with Point Break. I mean, there's some vibes there. This is what I'm saying. Like surfers have it going on. I'm very compelled.

Point Break is in. Yeah. Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, the quick turn sequel to Bill and Ted, which I like. Yeah. But I don't think. You're not going to ride for it. It's going to go in. I don't think so.

I like it, but we have a lot of work to do. And frankly, we have a hot run coming. Yes. Yes, we do. Keanu quickly becomes a vessel for the kind of emergent voices of independent cinema in Hollywood. And so as this kind of Sundance moment is starting to happen, a lot of these filmmakers start plucking him out. And one of them, of course, is Gus Van Zandt,

who makes My Own Private Idaho. And Keanu is a co-star of that film with River Phoenix. An amazing movie. Incredible. And he's quite good in it. And the movie is this kind of riff on Shakespeare. And so there's a lot of Shakespearean dialogue throughout the film. And it's a reminder that he's quite good in it and you know the movie is this kind of riff on Shakespeare and so there's a lot of Shakespearean dialogue throughout the film and it's a reminder that he's a good actor you know he's not just Neo he is someone who can hold the screen when being

has to communicate in a way that is beyond the beauty of his face so to me it's kind of a no brainer that it has to go in because it's one of the signature films of independent 90s cinema yeah I think the only argument against it in the hall of Fame is that as amazing as Keanu is, and he is incredible in it, and even developing that, like, that kind of myth of Keanu as, like, an object of desire and a canvas on which you,

you know, project everything that you might want, he's kind of unknowable in a compelling way in it, but it is a River Phoenix movie. It is. River Phoenix is really taking it. So I agree with you,

but if we come to a point where it's like we have 11 movies. You want this to be in that kind of nether realm between green and yellow. I'm just saying that at some point we're going to have to make decisions. This is an incredible movie, though. Okay. And a cult classic.

We'll hold yellow, but I'm leaning green. No, no. I mean, you can put it in green. We might just have to un... I don't know. What's your vibe on the next film, which is Bram Stoker's Dracula? I'm waiting for you to share your vibe. I'd like to revisit this movie.

I wonder if Bill would ever do this on the rewatchables. Probably not. I mean, it's a Francis Ford Coppola major, you know, tentpole adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel. And it's a fascinating movie. It was a pretty big hit. But I don't think it has the best reputation, critically. I think people were kind of split on it. It did get some Academy recognition at the time.

I think it was nominated for four Oscars, but mostly below the line stuff. Keanu is like the fourth lead in the movie. He plays Jonathan Harker in the film. It's really Gary Oldman in Winona Ryder's movie, and to a lesser extent, Anthony Hopkins. It's hard, though, because movies like this

facilitate where he's going in just a couple of years and so i like how relevant or not relevant it is to his fame and star persona i'm i'm not i'm not totally sure to me it's yellow okay because it is francis for francis for coppola movie if my own private idaho is yellow then this is definitely yellow i'm voting for my own private idaho before this well then you share with me what you think about the next film, which is 1993's Much Ado About Nothing. Love that he did it.

And I love this film. This is a Kenneth Branagh adaptation starring Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Denzel, Keanu Reeves, Michael Keaton. Like, everyone is in it. Keanu plays the villain, Don John. And I don't know. It's not my favorite of his performances. I don't think he shines in the way that he shines other places.

He took some hits for this performance. Yeah, I mean, first of all, it's not like inflected by Shakespeare. It just is Shakespeare. So it's real talky. And everyone else, all the other actors I just named are really animated and in this comedy i'll like almost antic and you know and there's a lot of silliness going on and like misunderstandings it's a it's a shakespeare comedy so his like remove does not work as well in this lineup you know like the hilarious opening to this movie you, they're all talking for a while and then, oh, and Robert John Leonard, like, and they all just are on horseback, like galloping towards the screen as, you know, like trumpets like flare and it's really funny and like ridiculous.

Even though it's not supposed to be funny or ridiculous. And that's the problem that Keanu is just like, they're looking sorely on the side. Yeah, I agree. I don't think we can put it in we're not going to it's okay um the next film is really interesting so this is not going in but 1993's Even Cowgirls Get the Blues which was a kind of a famous bomb and was Van Zandt's follow-up to My Own Private Idaho and the film that he made before the to die for Good Will you know, double smash that Van Zandt had immediately after this. And it's the one that comes in between. When I was a kid, I loved the books of Tom Robbins. He was one of my favorite novelists.

Still Life with Woodpecker was like put in my hand when I was 13. And so I really, I like this movie a lot. And I also blame it for there not being more adaptations of Tom Robbins books because it bombed so hard because he's a very particular flavor of novelist. And Keanu, again, like plays kind of like the secondary tertiary role in this movie. Uma Thurman is the star. Doesn't totally work. But I think it's indicative of how wide open it felt like American movies were in the early 90s. The fact that a movie that is this unusual about a hitchhiker with an unusually large thumb,

you know, like, it's a weird movie. And it's a mainstream movie that had a bunch of emergent movie stars in it. And the reunion of Uma Thurman and Keanu as well from Dangerous Liaisons. Okay, even Cowgirls with the Blues is out. Freaked, which is his reunion with Alex Winter. This is really more of a cameo

and you can see that he uses, Alex is using Keanu to kind of get this movie made that is like a soft reimagining of Todd Browning's freaks about like a former child star and like a carnival world and is a really weird movie.

But if you were a young boy with HBO in 1995, you watch this movie like over and over again. Definitely not in the Keanu Reeves Hall of Fame, but an artifact of my childhood for sure. A lot of these are a young boy with HBO vibes. Yeah.

Maybe Little Buddha, not so much. Although like, let's just, let's pull back and look at 1993 again, because we're going to talk about the kind of big shift when it's 94. In 93, he's like kind of cashing in chips already. That's a, you know, Little Buddha is a Bernardo Bertolucci movie. It's one of his, it's his follow up to The Last Emperor.

One of the, you know, signature voices of international cinema in the 20th century. In 1993, Keanu makes a Shakespearean adaptation a very weird Tom Robbins novel adaptation works with his buddy to make a movie about freaks and

makes a story about Buddhism with Bernardo Berlucci right um shout out to him I mean credit to him for

spreading his wings he's always been an adventurous star totally that's part of what is so fun about him yeah he tries stuff

Little Buddha's not in okay and then 1984 Speed yes He's always been an adventurous star. That's part of what is so fun about him. Yeah. He tries stuff. Little Boot is not in. Okay. And then 1984, Speed. Yes. I mean, obvious. What's a color that's more green than green? Chartreuse.

No, I guess that has yellow in it. So the greenest of green, the Ellsworth Kelly green. Love it. That's brilliant. Speed's in. Yeah. What do you think of Speed? Sick. Love it. Rewatched it yesterday. That was another one I was like,

I'll just, you know, 20, 30 minutes that suddenly I was like, well, they gotta get on the bus. Like, I can't turn it off before they get on the bus. And I'm like, well, now they gotta get, you know, they gotta get everybody off the bus. Just kept going and going and going. Amazing stuff. This is where he realizes like, I think what his movie star persona is. Because there's hints of this in Johnny Utah in Point Break.

But the kind of, like, steely, reliable, death-defying but unflinching action star persona. And it's not totally dissimilar from his contemporaries, like, Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, Steven Seagal, Jean-Claude Van Damme. I mean, all of those guys were active at this time. But there is like an inherent hamminess in what those guys do. And that stillness that we're talking about with Keanu, I think is what makes him

a more appealing version of this kind of actor for me. So when he has a good script and a good director like Yanda Bont, good stuff happens. Speed is just amazing. Also, I like the buzz cut. It's like rare in the Keanu. He can do any haircut though.

He can. And I like that he has a signature and sticks with it for the most part. Just that more long kind of like shoulder length. Yeah, the long flowing lots. Yeah, but this buzz cut works for him he's very hot he's an incredible star he's got great chemistry with sandra bullock this is

where she emerges as a major movie star that one's a no-brainer johnny mnemonic you revisited that one recently so i went hunting for johnny mnemonic um in physical media form and i'll have you know that a few years ago the studio issued johnny mnemonic in black and white wow and there has been a i don't know a reviving of the reputation of this movie that was considered a massive bomb when it was released and it's a completely ill-conceived i think it's a philip k dick adaptation um and no it's not philip k dick excuse me it's william gibson um It was a little better in black and white. Okay. I didn't think it was great. Okay.

I think it's funny, though, that this is really his major entree into science fiction because he is soon to become maybe the most singular science fiction star of his generation with a movie that's coming in just a few years. Johnny Mnemonic is out. You seen A Walk in the Clouds lately? No.

I saw this in a movie theater. Yeah, so did I. Of course. It's a big period romantic drama about a guy. Does he come back from World War II? I think he comes back from World War II. And comes to realize that the woman that he's married to is not the woman that he's in love with. Yeah.

And he goes off and he meets a family and falls in love with a young Mexican-American woman and changes his life. Keanu is a romantic lead. What are your thoughts? We'll come to a movie that summarizes my positive thoughts about this. It does not always work because there is that thing where he is, he receives a lot of the attention and the feelings and the projection

but he's not always giving back the emotion in the powerful way that you need for a romantic sizzle, basically. So it can feel a little inert.

If there's not chemistry, then there's like really not chemistry. You can really feel the lack. I agree with you. A Walk in the Cloud is not in the Hall of Fame. 1996 is Chain Reaction, which is a team up with Morgan Freeman and Andrew Davis, the director of The Fugitive.

I do believe Keanu plays a nuclear physicist in this film. Sure. Is that right? Is he a physicist? Maybe he's just a machinist. I honestly can't remember. But this film is not in. Yeah.

It wasn't a bomb, but it wasn't a hit. And now we're in a little bit of our concern trolling phase here. There's a couple of movies in a row. Johnny Mnemonic didn't work. Walking in the Clouds didn't work. Chain Reaction didn't work. The thing is that it's just two years here. And then...

I mean, are you a big Feeling Minnesota person from 1996? No, I'm not. He and Cameron Diaz are just on different planets, respectfully. Yes. Two planets that I enjoy individually, but they don't have the same ecosystem or whatever. Do you remember what Keanu's character's name was in the film Feeling Minnesota? No.

It's called Jax. Here's how you spell Jax. J-J-A-K-S. All right. What? That seems also unnecessary for a spoken and visual medium, you know? Agreed. Yeah.

Keanu and Cameron Diaz, they don't fit. Yeah. I remember being really intrigued by this trailer because Cameron Diaz was so hot at the time. Shoot, yeah. You know, the aftermath of the mask and it was my best friend's wedding, I think, right before this as well. Same. It's right after. Maybe right after.

Yeah. Um, movie doesn't work. The last time I committed suicide from 1997, also not in. Let me come to the devil's advocate. And here's the problem. Yeah. Ke yeah Keanu who I love is not good in the devil's advocate he is not good he is remarkable as a slick Florida lawyer who has been compelled to move to New York City and join Satan's law firm right which is one of the best pitches for a movie I've ever heard. And Al Pacino is riveting

in this film as John Milton aka Satan. Yeah. And I am a fan of man and I'm a fan of this movie. And I want to put it in. But I don't

Yeah. But you don't think that he is Well is it weird to celebrate something in which like our star is the least good part? He's just miscast, I think.

Yeah. It's hard. I don't lose. I'll win. That's right. Also the accent. The thing is that Keanu needs to be setting the tone and the energy in a movie. And if someone else, say Al Pacino, is there to upstage him and take the energy to a different place,

it doesn't match. It's a really good point. Yeah. Should we yellow it? Yeah, but I fully assumed that we were just going to put it in. Like, you can't. Sometimes you have to stick to your core beliefs, you know? Yeah.

And this is a core Sean Fantasy belief. This is one of my favorite movies. I know. Tony Gilroy wrote the script. I know. Okay, you can yellow it, but we'll come back. 1999, The Matrix. movies i know tony gilroy wrote the script i know okay it's yellow for now 1999 the matrix one of the most important films made in the last quarter century and one that um its influence ripples through our culture to this very day and it's the most perfect casting of neo's career and neo

you know or of keanu's career and he has become neo in so many ways um brilliant movie brilliantly conceived and it doesn't work if you don't have the right vessel and i don't know i i believe that become Neo in so many ways. Brilliant movie. Brilliantly conceived. And it doesn't work if you don't have the right vessel. And I don't know. I believe that there were other people who were considered for the part, if I'm not mistaken. And it's kind of hard to imagine this movie without the kind of dazed, aw shucksedness of where Neo starts in the story.

Right. And then how he kind of like has this realization, you know, this kind of epic transcendent transformation. Like that's the whole point of the film in the story. Right. And then how he kind of like has this realization, you know, this kind of epic transcendent transformation. Like that's the whole point of the film in many ways. And also in a lot of ways, like Keanu finding that like second or third gear of his own career and presence. Like you watch the transformation both of the character and this person be like, oh,

this is what you can do. And this is how it can be used in movies. It's also wildly influential on the rest of the work that he does as an actor because he gets introduced to this martial artistry and Yuen Woo Ping and Chad Stahelski and David Leitch who go on to direct John Wick. They work with him as stunt coordinators and stunt doubles. And it's a movie that just kind of changed everything. So it's obviously green.

It's crazy that he's got three or four movies already that you're just like, this isn't the whole fame. This is a five star movie. I think speed point break and the matrix are among the more legendary action movies ever made. So that's fun for him. 2000, the replacements it's going in.

It is green. Yeah. Really? Yeah. This is an all time cable classic. All right. Speak on it. Um, it's inspired green, yeah. Really? Yeah, this is an all-time cable classic. Alright, speak on it. It's inspired by the 1987

NFL strike, and it's about replacement players, scabs. Yeah, I was gonna say. I'm not supporting scab work, but I am supporting Gene Hackman and Keanu Reeves sharing scenes together. Gene Hackman plays his coach in the film. Is this a great film?

It is not. So it's a movie that is directed by Howard Deitch, who is married to Leah Thompson and has directed a handful of interesting comedies over the years. It's a movie that is, like, better than it should be. Like, on paper, it's a really goofy idea. And then when you sit down with a Coors Light on a Wednesday at 6 p.m. and it's on TNT, you're like, I'm really happy to be here.

And so I feel like it has to go in. What does it illuminate about Keanu? I mean, what a brilliant athlete he is. Okay. He's like such a credible quarterback. Right. How many guys can play that kind of part? But he already played a quarterback turned surfer.

That's true. And we also have many other films that... Left-handed quarterback. You know how rare those are? Is that good? I would say no. Okay. That's true. is your left side instead of your right side. And historically, the way that the tackles are drafted and positioned is different. And it's a different set of skills. And one is more valuable. This is complicated. We need to get Ben Selleck on to talk about this. Okay.

I like the replacements. And it might be a while before we get to another movie that's going in. Well, that's not true. You're putting The Watcher in from 2000? If we're putting The Replacements in, then we have to put My Own Private Idaho in. I thought we were being like a little bit more judicious on this first round.

But to your point, he's the star of The Replacements. He's not the star of My Own Private Idaho. I'll tell you what. We'll yellow The Replacements for now. Okay. Are you getting nervous about how we're going to fit all these movies in? No, I just it's gonna be fine he has like 10 years of no movies that are going in coming out all right okay okay two let's let's yellow it for now we'll say

2000s the watcher no 2000s the gift sam raimi movie supporting part he plays donnie barksdale no 2001 sweet november is this what you're what to push for? No. Okay, this is a romance with Charlize Theron, right? Yes, yeah. But no, I'm not going to. I don't remember this being a very good film. I didn't revisit it.

It's not. I think that I did see this in theaters, but I think that was the last time I saw it. Okay, what about Hardball? Make your case. Hardball is a movie

that is directed by Brian Robbins, another sports drama starring a young Michael B. Jordan, a beloved movie. Not a movie that has ever spoken to me personally. I think if we eliminated it from the hall, get a lot of angry tweets.

Well, are you ready to receive those? This is your podcast. It's tough. That's, you know, this is your time. This is a really hard one. How did this movie do at the box office? Not very well. Okay. $44 million against a $32 million budget. Keanu Reeves plays a gambler in debt who now needs to coach a baseball team for troubled kids. Okay. To get out of his debt. Okay. Which is a bit of a stretch as a story.

Yeah. I'm also not sure about Keanu as a gambling addict. Right. Not sure that tracks. No, it seems like he could rise above that. It is based on a true story. Okay. I don't really see Keanu as like a reality-based kind of guy, you know?

Oh, interesting. So anything that resembles reality, we reject. Yeah. He's transcendent. Let's yellow hardball for now, just to manage the hordes. This podcast is going off the rails, but okay. The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. It's up to you. I don't think they're in.

Okay. I think they're both very flawed. I think Reloaded has some extraordinary action filmmaking. Right. I think Revolutions is kind of a mess. I had no idea what was happening in either of them when I rewatched them before Matrix 4. But they looked very beautiful. You know.

Except for when they were you know I'm in I'm I'm interested in the architect and some of the ideas in Reloaded and where the story goes but I think they have major flaws they're more fun to enjoy 20 years removed from the anticipation of them making these movies back to back is always a challenge there's no guarantee that they're going to be good I'm going to say they're out okay I know what you're going to say about the next film though. This is three films in 2003 and the Matrix Reloaded, the Matrix Revolutions, and then something's got to give. Absolute green or I walk out of the studio. Are you fucking kidding me? So you asked about romantic leads.

My guy running game on Diane Keaton and you are ready for Diane Keaton to fucking leave Jack Nicholson on a bridge in Paris to go home to this sweet young doctor who goes to theater like what he is so like warm and charming and this is the only time that he played I mean he's not a real person he's obviously like a fantasy like please let me know if you know any like Keanu Reeves looking doctors in the Hamptons and like I will get on a plane. But he plays the Nancy Myers version of fantasy like equally well. I think that he and Diane Keaton have real chemistry. It's very hard to be the third guy in the rom-com and be in any way memorable and it's a very short list of people where you are like actually she should have gone with the other guy and it's like really basically just keanu and something's got to give that you feel officially she should have just gone with keanu

no i mean like you know my adult rom-com brain like it's how it like it's how it works she's supposed to be with jack nicholson. And the movie does land that plane. That's why Nancy Meyers is one of the greats. Just give her all of the money. Warner Brothers, let's do it. No news on that recently. We don't know where that stands. They were talking.

Warner Brothers. I think that she deserves as much money as she wants. I love that that movie, the title is inspired by Ernst Lubitsch. It's great. I know that that's as much money as she wants. I love that that movie is, the title is inspired by Ernst Lubitsch. Yeah. It's great. I mean, I know that that's a fallback for her. She's really good.

She's great. I got no beef with Nancy Meyers. It's a green for me. I don't even know what you're pitching. I don't know. I'm on board. Okay, great. It's a different pitch.

It's a different flavor for him. And it's an indicator of like, maybe something he should have done more of, honestly. Because he has a natural affinity for light comedy. Yes yes and i think a lot of times when you look back at the kind of walk in the cloud style parts these kind of more serious films with serious filmmakers that are you know this romantic period piece or doing shakespeare you know he's okay at that but um i think putting himself in the hands of an auntie myers more often would have been beneficial to this these this period of his career that is coming up.

True. Which, let's talk about it. So something's got to give his in. 2005's Constantine is a movie that some people have some affection for. Francis Lawrence directed it after this big career of music videos. It's based on a DC comic.

It's actually going to be revived. I don't know if it's a new film or TV series. I can't recall. But there are people who love this movie. To me, it's very flawed. And it's kind of Francis Lawrence figuring out how to make movies like this so he can make The Hunger Games, which is coming shortly after this. So to me, it's out, even though I think we'll probably get a little bit of feedback that people really dig that movie. 2005's Thumbsucker,

fun, supporting part in a clever movie, but not in. A Scanner Darkly, interesting one. Another filmmaker who I wish he had worked with more, Richard Linklater. It's a little hard in rotoscoping to say like, well, that's one of his great performances, but that is an adaptation of a Philip K. Dick novel. Again, Keanu is this vessel for science fiction storytelling. I think it's out, Scanner Darkly. What do you think? I didn't revisit it, so. Where are you at on the lake house? So I have never seen the lake house and I am really mad at myself right now because I had it on my list of things

to watch before we did this and then it's not streaming anywhere and I was on the wrong, and I just never got there. But this is, he reunites with Sandra Bullock for this. Yeah, and it's a kind of, it's like a fantasy romance.

It's a remake of a South Korean movie. It's a really strange movie. It's a kind of, it's like a fantasy romance. It's a remake of a South Korean movie. It's a really strange movie. It's about two people who trade letters back and forth who are living two years apart. So we really could have used Amanda Science Corner. Yeah. Oh, right. Explain the time continuum here.

Yeah. I'm sorry. This movie was a hit. Okay. I would not say it's- I think this was my senior year of college, so that's how I missed it. I don't know that it's necessarily

the most remembered film directed by an Argentinian director who did not make very many other films in America. I don't know if he ever made another movie in America named Alejandro Agresti. There's a part of me that thinks it kind of has to be because of how well it did and how it's like

it's kind of a cable classic but I I don't know what are you looking at I just I'm trying to understand

Christopher Plummer's in this it's a big I don't know I think this literally this came out June 16, 2006 which is like could have been the day

I graduated from college I'm not really sure. You were on a quarter system, so it was later. It's kind of his last gasp of major relevance before John Wick. That's the thing. No, we're not putting it in. Unless you, I mean, do you think it's... I don't love it.

I saw it whenever it came out and I was like, it's fine. No. We've got other things that we can do. Okay. 2008 Street Kings, absolutely depraved movie directed by David air in which he plays a corrupt cop, a sick movie in theaters.

I have no idea how well it's aged, but, uh, it's not in, even though I like it. Okay. Just putting that out there. All right.

Street Kings. Watch it. 2008. The day the earth stood still. This is a remake of the 1950 science fiction classic in which he plays, uh, Klaatu, the harbinger of doom come to Earth from a foreign planet. The filmmakers have turned this movie

into a kind of climate change parable. Right. Like you do in the 21st century. Scott Derrickson, before directing Doctor Strange and Sinister, this is a movie he made, hugely unsuccessful movie despite the fact that Keanu plays an alien and Jennifer Connell This is a movie he made. Hugely unsuccessful movie despite the fact that

Keanu plays an alien and Jennifer Connelly and John Hammer in it. I watched this movie for the first time last night. I'd never seen it before because it had such bad press

when it came out and I wanted to try to reclaim it here and I can't. It's not good. Yeah. I've never seen The Private Lives of Pipley.

I rewatched it. I'm now possibly the only person on planet Earth who has seen The Private Lives of Pipley twice. Didn't work this time.

It's too bad. Didn't work the other time either. Is it Robin Wright and then also Blake Lively playing the younger version of Robin Wright? Yeah, and they're time-shifting. Or they're not time-shifting. It's just flashbacks. And Keanu plays the love interest who has nothing to do, really. She just kind of shows up and is like's like i like you a couple times he i he maybe has five lines of dialogue weird role for him to

take on here well it's what you were saying about he should like take more nancy myers types roles but like there's only there's only one nancy myers you know but well it's like it's about it's centered on a woman and you know it's about her life and their funny parts and sad parts. And, you know. I guess it's, so it's Rebecca Miller. Yes. Arthur Miller's daughter, Daniel Day-Lewis's partner. And based on her novel.

Yes. But this movie kind of came and went, as I recall. Yeah, it's not very good. Okay. So that's out. Henry's Crime from 2010. Kind of noir revisionist film that's not going in i do like the movie side by side that he produced and as a narrator for but that's not

going in either it's just an interesting movie documentary 2012's generation um he has a small part in that that's out in 2013 he directs man of tai chi which is a pretty cool movie um but i don't think it quite rises to the level. In this movie, though, you can see him getting a bigger interest in martial artistry, which becomes a huge part of the storytelling of the films to come. He also makes this big, big budget martial arts movie called 47 Ronin that is not good. It has some very bad CGI. But he's not bad in it.

And then 2014, John Wick. Now, I don't know what we do with the John Wick movies movies because with the exception of three they all feel like vital okay then put them all in do you think we should do that yeah why not well it makes the list a little more challenging 2014's john wick of course is is in absolutely it's a movie that you know famously almost didn't get distribution was almost a direct-to-video movie it wasn't acquired officially by lionsgate until like a few weeks maybe a month before it came out which is so weird to think about but when you watch the movie it's a fully realized character and world and it is the highest level action you can possibly find it kind of invented a style that was dubbed gun fu and Keanu was the

ultimate vessel for this kind of fighting style and this action style. Slick, entertaining, coherently told action movie, which is rare in this space. And it becomes a big franchise. I mean, a legitimately big franchise. And each film has been more successful than the last. So the first one's definitely in. 2015's Knock Knock, starring Eli Roth. This is the first time I saw an actress named Ana de Armas.

Really? The premise of this movie is it's a cold rainy night and a father, his family has left for the evening and they are staying at like his wife's mother's house. So the kids are out of the house. Wife's out of the house. Keanu's all by himself. Knock,

knock on the door. Two beautiful young women. Our car broke down. Can you help us? And they come into the house and then things go awry. Yeah. They start to seduce him, but then also they start to torture him.

Okay. It's kind of loosely based on, I think the, I can't remember the name of the film, Seymour Cassell film with Colin Camp and Sandra Locke. I think it's called Death Game. Like a cult movie from the 70s.

It's a really fun movie. I love it. It had a weird run on Netflix like three months ago where it was like the number one movie on Netflix for four days. And I was like, nobody saw this when it came out in theaters.

Definitely not in the Hall of Fame. But if people are looking for something entertaining with Keanu at the center, doing something that I wish he did more of, which is play a sort of like affable but is he affable kind of guy, there's a little bit of a dark undercurrent to that performance.

2016's Exposed. Never heard of it. Okay. That's amazing. I don't know what that movie is he plays detective scott galvin have you seen it no okay 2016 he also appears in the neon demon here we go from my guy from nicholas winding rough that by the way the podcast the watch podcast that you did with chris and andy about copenhagen cowboy Was psychotic. Why? That was just...

It's like... Love is love. We all have an idea in our heads of what JMO would be. And it's like wonderful and funny. And that was like what JMO actually is. And it's terrifying. Chris and I were talking yesterday about how this like recent revisionism of the George W. Bush era would be a long segment on JMO.

Like 45 minutes to roughly 9 hours. So that's where our head's at. It's beyond Refn's work and into the political, cultural, societal sphere. Not long enough. Not long enough. We gotta go longer. Well, you're in charge of that, Bob. I mean, if you want to push us

to go deeper and harder, you tell us. Bobby, how old were you during the George W. Bush era? I was four when he became president. Great. Dear God. Thanks so much. I have strong takes, though. Strong takes.

I'll bet. That's like me being like, I have strong takes about Lyndon Johnson. I have strong takes about him, too, dog. Oh, man. The Great Society. That's why we're here today. Okay. Neon Demon's out. It's too small apart doesn't matter he's he's kind of doing like um spot work for

interesting auteurs the same is true for 2016 the bad batch on a lily on her pores follow up to a girl walks home alone at night also not in the whole truth my guy loves to play a lawyer it's not good as a lawyer shouldn't shouldn't play lawyers. 2017 is The Bone. He also likes to play doctors. I think this is his fourth or fifth doctor part. Yeah. But this is a

very upsetting movie, Marty Noxon movie, about a woman with an eating disorder. Oh. That is also not going to be in the Hall of Fame.

Chapter 2, John Wick. We've only done Chapter 2 on the rewatchables and not Chapter 1, strangely. But it's because Chapter 2, John Wick. We've only done Chapter 2 on the rewatchables and not Chapter 1, strangely, but it's because Chapter 2 is such an amazing

elevation of what the first film was. I think it's in. Great. No argument. No, I told you. I wasn't going to hold you back. Have you seen 2018's Siberia?

No, I haven't, but I have seen 2018's Destination Wedding. What do you think of that movie? I haven't seen that. It is not good. So Winona Ryder Reunion. Yes, and it's a romantic comedy. Sort of. but I have seen 2018's Destination Wedding. What do you think of that movie? I haven't seen that. It is not good. So Winona Ryder reunion.

Yes, and it's a romantic comedy, sort of. Very sour. It is, Winona Ryder plays the ex of the person getting married. Keanu Reeves plays the brother of the person getting married. They hate everyone. And pretty much, no one else speaks in the movie it's just dialogue it's just the two of them that keep getting thrown together at the various wedding events or the

plane or whatever and they just snipe at each other and then at the end they like each other great i'll never watch it yeah it's not good 2019's replica is a kind of failed science fiction film that didn't never took off for him. That's also not in. I think John Wick Chapter 3, and we will get to Chapter 4 very shortly, is the least of the John Wick films. Okay. It's not bad. It has some incredible set pieces, as all of these films do.

I find it a hard stretch to get three John Wick movies in, let alone four. Okay. So I'm going to say let's table three. I'm fine with that. Always be my maybe. I have a hard time putting this in much as I enjoy this.

I agree. I wasn't going to... Something's Got to Give is the only one where I was really going to go to the... I was never going to fight you on that.

...going to go to the mat. I really like it. In fact, I just... I fast-forwarded this morning to the extended Keanu cameo where he plays himself. And it's incredibly funny and good natured and makes that movie. As I watched the movie the first time, I was like, I wish the movie was just Ali Wong and Keanu. Yes.

That is the movie that I want to see. So we could have that, right? Would it work at like 90 minutes? I don't know i just thought you know there's i saw a trailer for this new um series starring ali wong who i love and steven yun on netflix called beef um and then my immediate thought was why isn't this a movie we just make this a movie please yeah that's a problem that i have but i just i mean i agree i just those two should be movie stars anyway 2019's toy story fork honestly, Keanu is absolutely hilarious in this movie. He is incredible as a toy, like an army toy named Duke Kaboom. Or he's, excuse me, he's more like a Evil Knievel style, like a stunt driver figure.

Okay, great. And his voice work is phenomenal. It's not in the Hall of Fame, but I look forward to the day when I can show my child Toy Story 4. He is transcendent in this movie. Isn't he so funny in this? It's genius level stuff. It's so good. He is transcendent. Isn't he so funny in this? It's genius level stuff. It's so good. It's probably not

enough of a part or thing. I don't think Toy Story 4 even has the best reputation, but I like it. 2020, Bill and Ted Face the Music. Fun movie. This is actually a fun movie

to get during COVID, during the pandemic, but definitely not in the Hall of Fame if we're not putting Bogus Adventure in the Hall of Fame. The Matrix Resurrections,

which I gallantly defended here on this podcast, but that many people thought was absolute garbage. I think I was mixed positive. It was a reel I liked that they tried and it was fascinating to watch everyone

grapple with the thing they had created in the Matrix. I agree that it didn't totally work. also i mean that was another like deep pandemic watched it on our screens i don't know how good it looked um it's a good point yeah it would have honestly been nice to have much a much deeper theater experience i saw it in a theater i saw van leithen actually and he looked at me he was like what the fuck dog and i was like that what the fuck, dog? And I was like, that was good. Okay, and that takes us to John Wick Chapter 4.

Now, I want to be able to bridge this conversation but we're in this perilous moment here with the films that we've chosen. So at the moment, we have two, four, six,

seven greens. Those greens are Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Point Break, Speed, The Matrix, Something's Gotta Give, John Wick and John Wick

Chapter 2. I think all of those movies with the exception of John Wick Chapter 2. I think all of those movies with the exception of John Wick Chapter 2 are above reproach. They have to be in. So that is tricky because... Let's start easy here.

I think Parenthood is out. I agree. To your point, it's too small even though it introduced him in some ways. I think also Dangerous Liaisons is probably out. Yeah.

You agree? Yes. Okay. So let's take those both out. probably out. Yeah. You agree? Yes. Okay. So let's take those both out. These are our yellows that remain here then. River's Edge, which I think is an important movie

in terms of like announcing him. And I think it's the movie that got him a lot of parts. I think it's the movie that got him Dangerous Liaisons. It's a well-remembered movie

from the 80s. My Own Private Idaho, which as I look at this list, I'm like, it has to be in. I agree. Again, this was early when we started and I didn't know from the 80s. My own private Idaho, which as I look at this list, I'm like, it has to be in. I agree. Again, like,

this was early when we started and I kind of, I didn't know what our... You didn't know how far I was going to push it? Yeah.

I was like, replicas has to be in. You know, well, and we started this podcast and you were like, are you going to be nice to me? Are you going to be supportive

and let me cook? And I said yes. And so I was trying to, I didn't know how weird you were going to get. I was surprised when you were like, devil's advocate is a yellow. I weird you were going to get I was surprised when you were like devil's advocate is a yellow I thought you mean he made speed in the matrix you know it's tough like there's a lot of no doubters here sure but I I agree now that I have a better understanding of your qualifications for this hall of fame I do think my own private

Idaho has to go in one of the replacements or hardball has to go in. I don't see the replacements here, Bob, but we need to add that too. Um, what do you think about Dracula? Like I said, this is your, this is your time. And I told you that I would be kind and supportive to you. Here's what I want to say though.

Pep talk wise. Okay. Cause you were like, this is, I want to cook. I have a lot of feelings about this, you know, and I've been there not as often as you have, but I've been there. And I think it's important to put your personal stamp on it, you know, and you can't live in the letterbox. You got to live in the real

world. So go with your heart, go with the movies that speak to you, make a good list, but I trust you to make a good list. Okay. Bram Stoker's Dracula is out. All right. I'm really stuck now. I think we made a mistake on John Wick Chapter 2. I don't think we can make the case for it

because there's too many things. Like, I don't think you can not have the replacements and Hardball. Okay. And also, The Devil's Advocate means a lot to me.

You're going to put the replacements where Hardball and over John Wick 2? It's hard to make a sequel, man. They show something different. It's hard to... They show something different.

Sure, but at the same time, John Wick 2 shows not a fluke. Here's what we can do when you give us the chance. Like, here is how big our imagination goes. Look at what we can create. Put the devil's advocate and hardball in right now, and let's see where we're at. Okay. I think that's nine i love the devil's advocate so i just can't turn my back on it and if people are mad they can write a letter to you know they can write a letter to someone else i stand with you on that

one follow your heart here's the list right now bill and ted's excellent adventure point break my own private idaho speed the devil's advocate Advocate, The Matrix, Hardball, Something's Gotta Give, and John Wick. Now here's the thing. What's on the yellow remaining, River's Edge, The Replacements, John Wick 2, and John Wick Chapter 4. Let's leave it at that and let's have a discussion about John Wick Chapter 4. Okay. Because we have one spot open. And here's what I want to say about John Wick Chapter 4apter 4 great tension good job john mcchapter 4 is amazing it is amazing it's really good and it is far too long and i know that and we can precede we can we can set that up immediately that they attempted to make and succeeded in

making a true action epic that was the purpose of the movie it's a little bit easier to understand the intent if you listen to my interview with Chad Stahelski, there's a reason why this film is two hours and 49 minutes. It's because there is a kind of conclusive feeling to the series, and it is meant to evoke bigger action epics of its time, something on a very grand scale that traverses the globe. And it does that.

The reason it is amazing, it is in part because it achieves some of those goals, but it is because it is the craziest and most fun action that I've seen in a movie in a long, long time. And that includes Ambulance,

which I flipped over last year. This kind of filmmaking that they do in these movies, do not underestimate it. Do not underestimate the incredible effort and creativity that goes into this kind of work.

It's very important to me to celebrate this kind of movie making because when you see movies like this in theaters, people fucking love it. They are audibly reactingibly reacting to them i don't know what your screening was like everyone i was a packed screening and everyone was cheering like from the beginning through the end with with every single set piece which just a high level of energy which is rare

and and because of that and you know we can certainly take issue with the characterization and the emotional intelligence of the storyline. That's not the purpose of the movies. They certainly have some of that to some extent. The movie is kind of predicated upon like a guy's dog being killed and then him seeking vengeance. Right. And I had a moment about, I guess, 30 minutes in because, you know, once they get to some

of the exposition where I was like, oh shit, I should have Googled John Wick 3 like before because I don't remember and I like don't totally know what's going on here and it doesn't matter. It does not matter. It's a great point. I mean, for those who are curious to hear, you know, Wick was essentially left for dead at the end of 3. He was pushed off a building by Winston who sort of ran the new york edition of the continental which are these hotels that kind of house assassins and feature this arcane mythology around the high table and this you know labyrinthine um order of power that runs throughout the

underworld of the world and wick is thought to be dead he doesn't die he survives and as he survives he's still essentially seeking vengeance against the high table for all of the crimes that have been committed against him. And he's a killing machine. He remains a killing machine in this film. He is largely emotionless. He's monosyllabic,

but he is relentless. That is the purpose of these stories is this thing that just keeps coming at you and coming at you and keeps surviving these trials of pain, agony, torture, destruction,

and gunfire. And in this film, you know, a new villain is introduced. That's sort of like the new leader of the high table. He's named the Marquis Vincent de Grosmont. He's played in, I thought hilariously by Bill Skarsgård.

He was great. Who was just leaning so deeply into being the villain of his generation. It's so funny. At one point, someone in my screening yelled, take that Pennywise. It's funny to watch him become such a well-known staple of movies right now. We didn't really talk about him when we were doing like any of our under 35 lists or anything like that, but he's now, he's a guy. And so he's, I think, a good fit for this over-styled, over-dressed villain character. And then the film introduces a bunch of new characters who are both friend and foe to Wick and who he is kind of trying to navigate and outlast. Among them, this collection of martial arts legends.

You know, Donnie Yen, probably foremost among them. He plays a character named Kane, who is an old friend of Wick's, who has also been hired to assassinate Wick. And so you get like five amazing Donnie Yen scenes. And he's- They're so good. He's such a great actor and artist. Like he is an artist with the way, like the sequence in the kitchen

during the Japanese, the Osaka continental scene- Is incredible. It's magic. It's fucking movie magic. I loved it. I love Donnie Yen in the movie. I'd never really seen Shamir Anderson before

who plays a character named Mr. Nobody who's another kind of hunter who's in the mix. And then Hiroyuki Sanada who's another great Japanese actor who people have been seeing in movies for the last 30 years plays Koji who is the manager of the Osaka Continental. And so the movie bounces. It goes to Japan. It goes to Paris.

It starts in New York City as all these films do. It's a globetrotting movie um that is largely defined i think by its set piece structure you know this across two hours and 40 minutes is basically organized around i guess is it six scenes i want to say six true scenes so i wanted to get a feel for you like which ones work the best and I'll I'll briefly outline them yes so you know the film opens with this kind of homage Lawrence of Arabia where Wick is is on horseback very beautiful traveling through the Middle Eastern desert yeah you had you had read me the tweet that you sent out about this yes before because it's great love to read my I came

into the I don't know and you were like here to read my tweets to you. I came in to the, I don't know, and you were like, here's what I'm about to tweet. Would you like to hear it? And I was like, sure. That's a real thing that happened. Must be so fun to be friends with you.

And so, but it was about your Chad Stahelski interview and it was saying that, like, that he set out to make his own sort of David Lean movie or his David Lean version of this. And then I went to see the movie

and saw this and I was like, oh, he meant literally. Just for 10 minutes. But yeah, just the first 10 minutes is very clearly a, you know, kind of like a numbskull Lawrence of Arabia homage, but entertaining. Very well executed. It's a sort of like a horse race through the desert. Yeah. That leads to what is meant to be this kind of conclusive assassination that actually leads to more drama.

And, you know, I'll just take this opportunity to say, you know, the consequences of that action that Wick takes lead to eventually the murder of Lance Reddick's character, the concierge,

who works closely with Ian McShane's character, Winston. And Lance Reddick tragically died just a week ago. And the film has now been dedicated to him. And Lance Reddick tragically died just a week ago. And the film has now been dedicated to him. And he's been a part of all four of the films. Really one of the most reliable and strong character actors of like the last 20 years.

I first got a look at him a long, long time ago on The Wire and where he was Lieutenant Daniels and was incredible in that show. And he's obviously been a staple of movies and TV for the whole time. So it's very sad actually and was incredible in that show. As many of us did. And he's obviously been a staple of movies and TV for the whole time. So it's very sad actually to see him in this movie

and kind of painful to see him die, you know, with that in mind. It's jarring and sudden. I mean, it's effective in the movie

but it takes on kind of bummer resonance. It does. Nevertheless, the movie kind of springboards from there and that leads to this Osaka continental sequence, which I think is really extraordinary. favorite part involves um rina saoyama who plays the daughter who i don't remember who she was stabbing but someone's just like climbing up a stair and she's just stabbed yes that was sick

that part was great yeah and that was when everyone in my theater just absolutely lost it really exciting yeah but that's just you know that's like one subset of many different things that happen and and hiroyuki Sanada and Donnie Yen and Keanu himself, like they all get their moments in these sequences. It is the closest

to like the historical John Wick scenes where there's a lot of kind of the gun food. There's a lot of hand-to-hand combat stuff. One takes place in sort of like

a museum style floor of the hotel. One takes place in the kitchen as we mentioned. There's some sort of like outdoor kind of Japanese garden moment

that is a showdown between Yen and Sonata that is very, very cool. This is like there is a lot of homage to great historical Japanese cinema in these movies.

And, you know, Stahelski himself is a really, really gifted and celebrated martial artist. Not just in front of the camera but like he practices and competes. And you can see that like,

I don't want to be too pointy headed about this, but it is like a true art form to be able to do this stuff well. And then to capture the choreography on film and this, this sequence in particular, it's not the most like, wow, I'll never forget how cool it was when X blew up or when this car hit John Wick thing.

But from a pure filmmaking perspective, I loved it. It reminded me of discovering movies like this for the first time. The third sequence, at a certain point, he has to go to a German dance club and murder a crime boss. So this is, it's like Brigade, basically. It's like Brigade. Like water Brigade. Yes.

Outdoor waterfall Brigade. So one thing that really stood out to me in this scene but then is it's kind of true of all of the john wick killing people in a club uh or party scene is is all the extras just absolutely going for it but the bergain extras just dancing their hearts out some really really top-notch work i'd salute every one of those people looking absolutely deranged part of these movies, the reason these movies work so well

is because they're so beautifully and brilliantly lit. Most action movies are not lit well. And in fact, they're like very dark and kind of foggy because they want the action

to move faster. They don't want you to see the threads. Yeah. You know, Stahelski doesn't, he's too good for that. And so this, you know,

the neon lighting in this sequence and the water as a combination is like total cinema, baby. Like it and and the the best part about it for me is that it's scott adkins the great british action star finally joining this franchise in a fat suit as this character killa right and then going hand to hand with keanu you know i've talked to on the show before about scott Atkins he is a one of one

he is like he is in the Donnie Yen class in my opinion of great artists who do this stuff and he's also doing like a very comic performance he's a British guy

doing a German accent in a fat suit fighting John Wick it's great stuff I love that scene too what do you think of what many people are kind of positing

as like the triumphant sequence of this movie which is the Arc de Triomphe car chase kind of cariting as like the triumphant sequence of this movie, which is the Arc de Triomphe car chase, kind of car crashing sequence. It's not my number one in this movie, just because another one, I was way more excited about it. I can't wait to talk about it.

I have a feeling that this would be near the top, but not at the top. Yeah, which I think is just like the objective ranking. But I was also thinking, because I had been bitching to you a little bit about like a three hour movie. And I was like, oh, he should have just told me that it was like all in Europe and that I would have been fine. But it's, you know, and obviously it's not. action sequence that takes place around like that circle, like that roundabout around the Arc de Triomphe, which is a modern Marvel slash nightmare of traffic. It's stressful just watching people driving in it. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I, you know, I have been to Paris a couple of times.

I don't think I've ever actually driven in the roundabout, but you've seen it in movies. You know, but it's a great use of like the idea of the location even if it's not exactly the location i also thought this cgi like was pretty good in terms of it looking like the thing i have some notes about some other locations it's hard because it's a it's a it's a blend of real cars and practical stunt work with CGI cars and CGI kind of speed and like it's one of those things

where when they shoot these sequences they shoot the the cars drive slow and then they speed up the film basically to make it seem like it's moving faster

and cars are hitting people on screen and people are flying into the air as far as that goes it's as good as I've seen yeah at pulling that off

in a non like Burt Reynolds 1970s movie where like a guy almost died so I thought it was pretty amazing it is and it also and it doesn't look I've seen at pulling that off in a non-Burt Reynolds 1970s movie where a guy almost died. So I thought it was pretty amazing. It is. And it doesn't look

fake. They sell it. It looks dynamic and real and exciting and it was very cool. This sequence kind of happens at the beginning

of the third act and at the beginning of the third hour of this movie. And it's oriented around this final pursuit of trying to kill Wick before he arrives at the duel that he has asked for to kind of free himself of his responsibilities. Right.

So he's on this quest. By the way. While trying to avoid being murdered. By the way. I mean, this isn't a set piece. It's one of the mostly unnecessary pieces of exposition. But that meeting where they whatever table thing and they agree to the duel and it it's the Shandamar right in front of the Eiffel Tower. Incredible.

Great stuff. These movies are beautiful to look at, which is part of what makes them so appealing. So that leads to this kind of two-part closing sequence that is all about Wick's attempt to finally arrive at the duel that will decide his fate. And he's meant to duel the hand-picked combatant by the marquee and the marquee has of course chosen the donnie yen character so it is these two old friends who are fated to face each other but before he gets there after he escapes the arc to trump he has to basically survive like a house raid like a full-blown house raid

and we get we're in we're in one-er territory. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The camera elevates and then we get an overhead shot as he is traversing this, I don't know, abandoned apartment complex. And along the way,

John Wicketts is handed on a gun that I've just never seen in a movie before. And it is like one part shotgun, one part flamethrower. Yeah.

And he's like firing this automatic shotgun and then people people are bursting into flames yeah and at this point he's you know

the camera is kind of hovering over the proceedings and it is this like magnificently choreographed sequence these movies are as violent as they come

there's more murder in these movies than in any movie you're gonna go see if you don't like violence you shouldn't be listening to this conversation. Yeah. But there is a kind of, it's not cartoonishness.

I think they understand the weight of the impact because if you listen to the sound design or think about what the performers go through, they take stuff very seriously. But it is a fucking ballet of violence, this scene. And it is beautiful to look at. And it's the same way you would look at the costuming in a Powell and Pressburger movie, but with a fire gun. And I just want to say, this is sick.

Yeah, no, I know. This part is, for people like me, I'm like, this is it. This is the one for you. It was like 10% like boy camera bullshit to me. It is, it is. And I was like, oh, okay, I see what you're doing. I mean, it's obviously like incredibly difficult to pull off. And I respect choreography, whether it's dance or in action scenes. To me, they are, you know, two sides of the same coin. Like the fire gun, you had mentioned that as well. You had mentioned like an unnamed weapon. And I was like, oh, that's Sean's weapon. That's the fire gun. And I was like, cool. I don't

really respond to the gun. You're not a gun person gun part of john wick is is my least favorite part of it but yeah it's undeniable pretty amazing yeah and then that leads to ultimately the final stage of the movie i like started screaming i fucking loved this it's so smart and also so cool to look at okay so the duel is set at sacre cur which is an old church in Montmartre, which is like the highest part of Paris. And so you got to, however you get there, you got to go up a big hill. And there are all of these staircases, very steep, long staircases built to take you up to Sacre Coeur. And so they just stage an entire extended like action sequence basically like Sisyphus just like trying to get up the stairs and they have everyone rolling down the stairs and new people keep

popping out of the stairs and it was just so ingenious and such a great use of location and also a different type of fucking rule it's great it's really great so good it's simultaneously emotionally involving because you want Wick to get to the top of the stairs, but also this perfect homage to Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, silent comedy where the sort of like people are doing death defying things, but there's laugh lines, you know, people were like rolling in the aisles when I saw this movie during the season. It's so fun. And then, you know, anything that happens after that, of course, the duel takes place, you know, John Wick does eventually get there. And then there is a final sequence. I have to be honest

because that is not the real Sacrifice and that you can tell. Oh, is that true? Oh, at the top. Yeah, at the top. It's just like... I don't think that you could stage a final shootout sequence.

No, and they're also trying to do it at sunrise. So I understand you have to like control the light for an extended amount of time. But because they're not moving so much because it's a duel, you can kind of tell. understand you have to like control the light for an extended amount of time um but you because they're not moving so much right because it's a duel you can kind of tell that's well so that that takes us to the end of the movie if you don't want to hear what happens at the end of this movie or really anything else about the movie fast forward turn off the episode go ahead to the chad interview in five minutes um but we should talk about spoiler alert kind of how the film

concludes so we're going to do that now you know the duel takes place and it appears that Kane has felled John Wick there are two rounds of shots fired and the second shot it appears he's been mortally wounded

and the Marquis steps in and says he wants to finish the job he wants the coup de grace and unfortunately the Marquis steps in and says he wants to finish the job. He wants the coup de grace. And unfortunately, the Marquis does not realize that John Wick has not yet fired his final shot, and so he has a bullet left in his gun and a shot left to fire, and so he's able to murder the Marquis. And that frees him, ultimately.

He wins the duel by murdering the Marquis, which frees him from the high table and any of his responsibilities and allows him to go on and live a happy life. Unfortunately, he has been morally wounded, or so we're led to believe. So we have a hard cut from the Basilica, where this duel takes place, to a grave site where he has been buried next to his wife, Helen. And Ian McShane's character, Winston, is paying his respects. And then we're off. There is a kind of secondary final sequence that features Koji's daughter kind of seeking revenge that could be an entree into a new film.

But my question for you is this. Is John Wick dead? I got to see the body or it's not over. You know? He is probably the most indestructible movie hero we have right now, short of Ethan Hunt and James Bond. Yeah. He's probably in third place. And maybe Dom Toretto in the Fast movies, but they...

I don't know. I prefer John Wick. So, I tried to ask Chad about this, and he demurred. I... Keanu is not young. Right. And these movies will seem really hard. And so if you told me that this was the concluding chapter, I would buy it.

He's 58 years old. He's gonna be 59 years old in September. Tom Cruise is 60? But these, I think these movies might be harder. These are far more physical. I think they might be harder to make. Now he's not flying off of a mountain on a motorcycle. That's a different kind of stunt work.

But, like, hand-to-hand combat? Like, I can't. I get out of bed and I can barely move. No, you're right. I understand. I'm 20 years younger than him. So, okay, let me put it this way. Yeah.

If this is the end, satisfying conclusion? Sure. I have to be honest that I. Satisfying in terms of the action and the scale of the movie, for sure. Like, do I understand what in terms of the action and the scale of the movie for sure. Like, do I understand what's up at the high table? Like, yes, but no, and I don't care. You know, so who cares about that?

I think they left the door open. You know? They did. They left the door open. And I think they intentionally left the door open. And I don't mind that either. Is this movie in the Keanu Reeves Hall of Fame? It's your decision. Well, it's the least amount of acting that Keanu has to do in any of the John Wick movies.

He has very few scenes where he's talking. Right. And yet, it's an incredible achievement. Acting is more than just saying things. That's very true. And he's performing at a very high level. I kind of want to put it in. Great.

Let's do it. You're amped about it. I think this movie rocks. I think this movie It's really good. This is like if you like movies like this go to a fucking movie theater

and enjoy it. It's seriously very fun. It does not feel like three hours. We almost never put the new movie for the performer in the Hall of Fame

when we're doing an episode. We gotta keep people guessing. You know? We do. We have to we have to, uh, we have to readdress the Tom Cruise, I think, because I don't know

if we put Maverick in. I think that was in the run-up to Maverick. Oh, interesting. Yeah, so that's something for us to revisit. Oh, wow. Well, John Wick Chapter 4 is in.

Here is the final list of films in the Keanu Reeves Hall of Fame. 1989's Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. 1991's Point Break. 1991's My Own Private Idaho. 1994's Speed.

1997's The Devil's Advocate. That's a personal pick. Just go with me on that. 1999's The Matrix. 2001's cult classic beloved Hardball. 2003's Something's Gotta Give. 2014's John Wick. And 2023's John Wick Chapter 4.

You feel good? I do. I'm glad The Devil's Advocate is in. Thank you. Thanks for supporting me. You're welcome. Thanks for letting me cook. You're so welcome.

I appreciate you, Amanda. Thanks so much to Amanda. Now let's go to my conversation with Chad Stahelski. We'll see you next time. Only $2.99 plus tax. Try one or try our full Tim Selleck's lineup. Terms apply. Prices may vary at participating restaurants in Canada. It's time for Tim's. So excited to have Chad back on the show. Hi, Chad. How are you? Good, good. Good to see you again. Welcome to the big picture where we love John Wick.

I'm curious, this is your fourth one now, and very few filmmakers get a chance to make a film following a character in a mythology like this across four films did you feel like you had unfinished business heading into this one um good question um i think we've talked before like we finished can i finish number three and we're like we're good and then it was literally like four or five months later um the movie had come out it had uh did what it did. People seemed to like it. And we felt pretty satisfied at that one.

We're like, okay, dodged a bullet. We're all good. We're pretty content. And we went to Japan because they opened much later. They opened like four or five months later. And we went to the Tokyo thing to do the opening press thing. And we were sitting at the Imperial Hotel at the Scotch Bar there having a hobicky, laughing about, whew, that was a little exhausting, wasn't it? Yeah. Okay. We're good.

Well, it's closer. You know, how do you feel? Well, it's a little bittersweet. You feel very proud when you're like, and by that time we had started working on other projects and we're kind of like, ah, kind of, kind of miss it. Well, it's like a good thing we're done. Yeah. Good thing we're done. You feel good. I feel good. Yeah. You know, and then we're sitting there and we see you know we're in japan and you're like what if john you know we start two drinks in like what if john wick met a samurai or a ninja and like this what if we did we should do an osaka continental and you're joking about it drinking gun yeah and we start in our i guess our way to hang out and have fun is to just riff on goofy ideas you know what if he was a cyborg john wick in space and you start having these ludicrous

conversations and then you wake up the next day, and we were getting ready for this press thing, and we both look like, hey, I got an idea. What if we did, you know, I just got done watching you know, Lawrence of Arabia, and then I did like some weird, Lawrence of Arabia you know, Surge of the Land is good, the bad, the ugly, and a Wong Kar Wai, like

in the mood for love, kind of like a weird trilogy at night. And you wake up the next day, and Keanu goes, ah, yeah, I want you back on a horse. And I was like, hey, we got this idea. Hey, what if he opens in the desert, and he kills of like a weird trilogy at night. And you wake up the next day and Keanu goes, yeah, I want you back on a horse. And I was like, hey, we got this idea. Hey, what if he opens in the desert and he kills the other one? And literally we had the overall idea for it before we got back on the plane.

And we're like, okay, that's something. And then the studio asked us, do you have any ideas? We're like, well, actually we have one. And it took another couple months to fill out. It wasn't quite that simple, but you just never know, well, actually we have one. And it took another couple of months to fill out. And it wasn't quite that simple, but you just never know, right? Like we didn't know, like we had already have other gigs ready to go. And John wicks aren't easy to put together because you're trying to be new and original. And there's a reason people don't do fight scenes with 50 cars of traffic. There's a reason you don't build sets out of waterfalls. There's a reason you don't

train dogs to bite crotches. It just takes a lot of time. So it took us a while to really get to the point where we wanted to commit and give a couple of years of our lives to it. And that's always based on, do you have a story that you'd like to go see? That's the only real bar we have. And we got about three, four months into thinking about it. And we're like, yeah, I'd go see it. It's good. The bad, the ugly meets Satuichi, meets Crouching Tiger, meets Grandmaster. Okay, I'll go see that movie. And that's kind of how it started. I mean, it makes a lot of sense that those epic kinds of stories too are what you were watching because the movie obviously has that feel. One thing I was thinking about, the movie dives even deeper into the mythology and the idea of rules and rule

breaking. And John is a rule breaker. You just described a few things that you've done in this film and in previous films. When you set out on this, when you and Kiana were talking about it, are you trying to identify rules that you can break as a filmmaker or in telling the story? I guess we take rules as a subcomponent of ceremony, of ritual, of etiquette. And that's how we kind of make our rules. You can definitely see the level of etiquette we use, like how you say John's name or how Ian McShane presents things. It's always on a scroll or there's a crest, there's a marker, there's a gold coin, there's sanctuary in the Continentals.

There's definitely a hierarchy that even the worst criminals won't break, and's what holds them together and that's why it's always been fascinating like whether it's greek mythology or japanese mythology or chinese mythology or norwegian there's there's always etiquette right there's always a an ideal a rites of passage a ritual a ceremony there's a ceremony to to bring you to a ritual to bring you to etiquette there there's always trials and if you read like Odysseus's journey in the odyssey like every little you know event or obstacle has a ritual and a ceremony and a progression of reward and cost of what it is like you know not everything has a price but everything has a cost like little thematics like that we try to wrap into John Wick. And rules are a big part of that.

So if you talk about what rules a character can break, yes, but there has to be the side of that, which is we always say consequence. You hear consequences 10 times in the movie. Like if you tell me a superhero can only do these three powers, for me, you better not break it. And if you do, there's got to be a massive ripple effect to your property film universe that says, okay, that caused problems. Cause you can't just willy nilly it. Cause then I just lose, you know, you, you lost me at that point. So if you say there's no business on continental grounds and my lead character breaks it, that has to destroy his world. And at the end, there is no, oh, Hey, I was just kidding. There's no happy ending for that guy. Otherwise You know, you can't change the world, but the world's gonna change you

So like this is the consequence of John's actions So the whole part to do the whole reason to do part four was to tie in all the shit We had done in one two and three and again Like I keep saying you can't just break a rule and not suffer the consequence now You may choose how you suffer you may choose when or where or saying, you can't just break a rule and not suffer the consequence. Now you may choose how you suffer. You may choose when or where or how, but you can't escape it. And over a long enough timeline, every story is a tragedy and you can't escape that. And that's the big mythological themes we try to hit in John Wick chapter four.

Even more so than the other films, this film seemed really difficult to make. When we last spoke, we talked about kind of the physical exertion and obviously what keanu and the stunt performers have to do to make a film but i was wondering about behind the camera i know you're obviously a successful martial artist but like does your crew have to be in better shape than other crews like what is it like to work on a movie like this physically my cameraman for sure like he's saw my camera guys, like just, but, uh, uh, we had a new steadicam operator in this, um, James, fantastic steadicam operator, but you know, you look at him and you're like, this is the guy you wouldn't want to mess with. Like, you know, once you go through the first set of rehearsals, you know, the camera guys are kind of hanging out with the stunt guys more

kind of a little bit, but, um, you know, Oliver oliver and james my my my two main operators uh they they're with the stunt rehearsals quite a bit they know what's expected of them yes they're they're in you know a great great they're in good people shape i would say you know like it's not like they go out there and just try to you know be triathletes but they're in very good shape they hang with the stunt guys they know the style we're trying to get. A lot of our secrets are we get the crew into the stunt rehearsals much, much sooner than literally every other production out there.

I'll spend twice as much in prep as most people spend on two or three movies in prep. What that does, it just gets everybody on the same page. Most people are surprised to find out that directors, let alone crew, sometimes don't see the action sequences until the day of shooting, which is fucking insane to me. You know, like I want my wardrobe people, my, my costumers, my, my hair and makeup,

they all have to go to a stunt rehearsal weeks out to see this. We all do, you know, quick bit dress rehearsals on set before we go. Like you, you have to do that. What happens is if you don't, you don't Like you, you have to do that. What happens is if you don't, you don't have any, you're so busy trying to catch up and do your day. You can't be creative because things change. You never know. Like if you think we rehearse 50 cars in a parking lot before we go, I don't have that kind of money. Like we take our best guess. We prepare it in the pieces the best we can. But when you get out there and the 50 stunt drivers are going around at 30 miles an hour, now you got to do like, that's the first time we're seeing this. Like

we're going to have our shit together so we can make the time to be creative and change and react to adversity. You know? So if you ask me, yeah, it's definitely the hardest one that we've had to shoot logistically. And because you can't just roll up in a gym and rehearse everything. A lot of it is, you know, you know, like the phrase goes, shit happens. The dogs don't know it's a movie, so they're not always on their best day. You know, guess what? It rains. It snows. You know, like things happen, you know? Cars don't always work. So how do you deal with all this? tell me then when you're thinking about the set pieces which are obviously are incredible in this movie are do you have like a little black book that's like here are some things i'd like to try in a movie over the next 30 years of my life like how do you conceive because it does feel like you are almost like knocking things off a bucket list with each movie you you pretty much nailed it if you go to the 87 11 entertainment offices in manhattan beach studios you'll see on my desk

and you'll see in my desk and you'll see in the drawers and you'll see on the bookshelves, dozens and dozens of Moleskine notebooks, and they have the funniest labels on them. You'll see a project's name, or it'll just say snow, or it'll just say sword, or, you know, say underwater ideas. And this one will say, how to, you know, car hits, you know, and there'll be pictures, references, websites. And it really is. I mean, I, I don't know what you like, you know, I'll go take a break from here. So, and there'll be, I'll be writing, sketching things and be like, ah, how to kill somebody with a tripod. Like, how does that work? You know?

So you have this great idea list of ideas. And every time we do a movie, you'll, you'll thumb through it or you go through your favorite youtube channels you go through your your photo i have like tens of thousands of photos in these folders one folder is called red and as many different versions of red as you can see from sunsets to underwater stuff to to modern art to to reflective things and that's what you kind of draw from all your inspirations right and we get a lot of ideas from from all these things. We write them down. And that's the first thing I'll do when I know I'm going to go into a project is I'll

just start flipping through stuff. Go down memory lane for like weeks before I even write a page. What was, was there one in particular that had been sitting in a book that you were happy to pull off in this film? John Wick on a horse. Keanu goes, I want to be on a horse. I'm like, I'm with you. You know, like an idea. it just said Lawrence of Arabia.

You know, it said Aqaba by land, that famous quote from David Lean's movie. And we're like, okay, we're going to go shoot in Aqaba. I don't know what we're going to do, but we're going to Aqaba. And then it was, you know, my dad's a plumber, owns a plumbing business back home. And I remember when I was like 14, 15 working for him, we were working at home that had this really cool water feature, like a water curtain. It shot water down. It was this night. It actually created a wall of water. And I thought that was,

I was poking it with my finger. I thought that was the coolest thing. Cut to, you know, 40 years later, I just have this sun says water curtain. And I'm like, let's do a nightclub with 40 waterfalls in it. That'll be easy. And that's how that club came about, you know? So I feel like the Wick films are always in conversation with movie history. You had the reference to Buster Keaton and Spaghetti Westerns and Melville and all these films. And in this movie,

you have Donnie Yen and Hiro Sonata and Scott Adkins, who are also kind of figures of movie history at this point and come with, I think, a lot of expectation for viewers too if they know their work. How do you think about, did you know that you wanted those actors for those parts? Did you write those parts for those actors? And did you think about even plotting the sequences with them

in mind? Yes. The answer is yes. And on that, we have this big vision board of not just ideas or storylines or characters, but there's a whole cast board in 8711 that's just people I'd love to work with. You know, don't know how, and like, you know, when you're casting, you're writing, you try not to force anything. So you try to write the cool characters, you have things, but sometimes the page inspires who you want, and sometimes just looking at, you know,

Clancy Brown's photo was up there, you know, as the Kurgan from Highlander. And you're looking at it going, that's how I see this guy. Like, you know, I had Samuel Hong from SPL, that movie he did with Donnie Yen, and he's in the big purple suit, and he's like, all right, you can't get Sammo because he's not available, but I like that character, so I'm going to put Killa Harkin in a purple suit, and he's going to be this larger-than-life character

that's going to be great at martial arts. And that's how you get. And then you put Scott Adkins with Sammo Hung, and you put this together, and that's how we got character so it's it's from a lot of different directions but that's literally every character in all the john wicks have been killer fit for the cast member that we wanted that's really interesting i'm curious about then um introducing someone like bill skarsgård who is like a much more modern actor and like a sort of modern young rising star the series isn't necessarily always always sort of more working in these like classical archetypes the lawrence fishburns why him like

why him for that part and and maybe just talk a little bit about the marquee no uh that's great i love time wish more people asked me about the marquee um no uh i met bill skardica a long time ago um i think he was i met him through my partner my former partner time Dave Leach who was doing atomic blonde and Bill had a small part in that and I kind of just met Bill through my my old partner Dave He said look you got to check this guy out is fantastic and obviously, you know, Stellan, you know You know the family name, right? But it wasn't too familiar bill and I got to know bill a little just a little bit saw a little of his performance Really liked him everywhere from atomic blonde all the way through the its and all the way through these little

you know European films back to it to all the way through the It's and all the way through these little European films back to all the stuff he's doing lately. And for whatever reason, it just connected with me. Like, I really like this guy. There's something about him, his physicality, his intenseness. Who knows why you're a fan of something? But I was really a big fan of his. And it just made all the sense

in the world to me. To be honest, there was another character in the movie that I was thinking about putting in that we took out, but it was a third character that had been on John's journey, and I originally sent, because I knew Bill was really busy, but I sent him the script going, hey, would you be interested? Just read the script and let me know what you think, thinking that, oh, he would get it. Maybe it would be this character, right? And he goes, hey man, I would love to play the Marquis. I'm like, no, that's great. But you don't want to be the bad guy. You want to be this guy, right? He's like, no, no, no. No. What? What are you talking about? And I was like, well, to be honest,

I thought maybe, you know, maybe you'd want to do a little action role or something. He's like, you know, thanks, but no, the, the fun role is a marquee. I'm like, really? He's like, oh yeah, no, no, I, yeah, no, I'd love to take a crack at being the, the antagonist in a, in a wick movie. I'm like, and it hit me. I was like, that's a genius. I like, wow, that's a genius idea. Like, oh yeah. Like, are you, thank you. Couldn't be happier. So over the next couple weeks, we talked about it. And he's like, so what do you think? And I sent him all the images of the different kinds of suits and the etiquette, the vibe.

I needed a larger, like, you know, we're a rock opera. We're a soap opera. We're a melodramatic action movie, if you will, right? So I needed somebody larger than life. And I wanted this etiquette. And we explained the whole thing that we've talked about with etiquette and ritual and source. And literally, he came back. He's like, look, I'm going to do this weird French Cajun accent. And we explained the whole thing that we've talked about with etiquette and ritual and source and literally came back. He's like, look, I'm going to do this weird French Cajun accent and I want to do it like

this. And I want this, you know, you know, he's very much like Keanu. He's got these little facial expressions and microisms that just play like how he twitches his eye or how he'll look or these little subtleties with his look. And that's like just when he stands, he has a way of telegraphing or conveying messages with his body and his stare. And for Wick, where we're a nonverbal communication kind of movie, that was the, that was the censure. And I'm like, Oh, I, you know, it was the first day he shot, which was in the,

the marquee's office we call with Lance Reddick and Ian McShane. And when him and Ian McShane went and then Lance and the look are just like, okay, I've got, you know, I've got my guy. Like this is, we're good. We're good. You knew that day, like we're good. It really plays. He's such a great movie actor in particular. I can't wait to see his career go. And I, in fact, I'm, I'm a hundred percent interested in working with me. And so I'm curious how you feel you've improved as a filmmaker since the first John Wick film. That's a good, you know, the question we get asked the most is how do you, how do you keep coming up?

How do you keep outdoing yourself? How do you go bigger, better, stronger, faster, whatever it is. And it's been a, I wish I could say there's some genius mindset and I'm so intuitive that we just know our own ego and know thyself again. That's all kind of bullshit um I've screwed up probably a hundred times more than then we've actually succeeded on film but you learn from your mistakes you try to get smarter before you get older so on the first movie you come with this you know confidence of arrogance you know you don't know what you don't know so you're

kind of fearless you know and you kind of just we didn't know that we were breaking some of the rules in the first know, so you're kind of fearless. We didn't know that we were breaking some of the rules in the first John Wick, so you just, whatever you need, give me the camera. We broke so many rules and methodologies and systematic ways of making movies. And then you realize, well, you kind of dodged the bullet, and you just made that one through, and you got a little lucky. And then you start realizing that, oh, if we're going to do this again, you've got to get a little bit more serious, right?

So then you take a really hard look at yourself and go, okay, well, yeah, it's easy. John Wick 2, let's just blow more shit up. We'll kill more people. We'll raise the body count. Keanu will use a sword this time. We'll call it quits and we'll be great. Now, the third one, we'll just go more explosions. We'll do a tank.

Yeah, tank, that's good. We'll blow bazooka. That'll be it. And then you realize that's not really improving. Those are just gags right and so many franchises have kind of i think been misled and go down those routes of just bigger better stronger faster right or you add more characters or you get you know a duo and yeah that'll be the magic mix and like again i only know the experience i had and that would be you know can i sit down and go well if we're going to do this, rather than do one thing bigger, it's going to be this equilateral expansion.

It's going to be, you've got to get better, I've got to get better. That's where it starts. Keanu's got to learn more skills. He's got to go deeper into the character. I have to be a better filmmaker. I have to be better with colors, with palettes, with composition. I have to know more about technology. I have to improve the editing.

I have to really dig down on how to be a better storyteller and a better craftsman in the trade that I've chosen to work in. And that took time to understand. And I used the Wix as a way to grow, to be a better storyteller, to go. And I stayed in my safe zone, I would say, 60% of the time. And then the other 40% I've tried to reach out and try different casts, different storytell, different narratives,

different color patterns to really stretch and push what I think the whip franchise can, or at least the property can withstand and try to use that as a personal growth platform. But you know, like I said, we, we fail a lot.

Like, you don't, you guys see the movie, you don't see all the rehearsals and the shit we cut and the stuff that are complete catastrophes of of narrative storytelling or of editing or of action sequences like you know we we have a lot of that the thing is you know we get knocked down nine times but we're going to stand up 10 you know that that's our that's our alliance with the character like yeah sure you can't kill us but you know you can knock us down a And I think, I guess what I'm trying to say is I have that come to reality meeting with all the department heads.

Like, look, everybody's got to be a little bit better. And if I'm a little better and Keanu's a little better, it doesn't rely on a gag of doing a bigger sequence or a bigger thing or more. It's if everybody gets bigger one inch, we just improve the circumference of our talent. And that's kind of the attitude we've had in every single one of them is everybody's just got to do a little bit more. It's if every year he gets bigger one inch, we just improve the circumference of our talent. And that's kind of the attitude we've had in every single one of them is everybody's just got to do a little bit more. Like and you got to have that we have a weird thing on job like you have a lead member like Kiana, right? And you watch this, he never leaves set. He'll be shivering it'd be like we shot all this

rain and all these sequences and it's freezing out like it's in Europe at in the winter time and the dogs look at him and he's the thing and you got to learn all the guns he can't feel his hands he's got to do the nunchucks and he's got to fall down the stairs and those are actually 200 steps he's got to go up to sacre coeur and never a bitch never moan just looks and goes yeah we're happy we're lucky to be here so okay that's your lead gap right so for anyone else below that on any part of the crew or anybody to bitch or moan is really out of place. So Keanu sets the tone. Now in my loyalty and my perseverance to it is my idea. Right. And that's my, that's my, that's my general. I got to put myself in that position

where it's like, well, there's no way I'm letting this guy down. Like he's inspired me to be the best I can be. So if he's going to get better better if he's going to spend all this time i better be working my ass off while he's at the gym i better be figuring out what's a better way to do camera what's the way to figure the sequence out what's a better way like does this scene really work like what's a better what's a better way of doing this how do i make this movie great to really showcase the crew in my crew my cast are sacrificing a big chunk of their life to be with me. So like, that's how we keep driving each other. And I think the question is always, how do you collaborate, collaborate and how do you evolve together? Right. And you have that

respect for the property and for each other. We're like, we're not letting anybody down. Like we're going to do our best. And I think that's, I guess that's the only way I found to make these things better is to just be better and demand more out of everyone. I wanted to ask you a question about safety, because at the same time that every action franchise, frankly, every franchise is trying to go bigger and bolder. In some ways, I feel like your challenge is to have kind of more daring sequences, even if they're not explosions. You mentioned the Sacre Curve staircase sequence, which is just unbelievable and so funny and clever, but also so scary and action-oriented. It just seemed very challenging to do. And while watching it, I was like, God, I hope somebody didn't get hurt doing that. And I don't know if the business has also had a much

bigger focus around safety in the last 10, 15 years. I'm kind of wondering how that collides with trying to do something like that staircase sequence. Look, well, one, the staircase, I mean, obviously, you know, Buster Keaton's in this movie, too. If you look hard enough, you'll find him. It's always the same. You'll go back and watch Buster Keaton. It's so goofy and funny and lighthearted that it's easily to dismiss how fucking dangerous the shit he's doing is. That's before wires. It's before wires.

That's before CGI. He's hanging on a side of a – he's getting hit by a car. I guarantee you if there were behind the scenes of Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd or Charlie Chaplin, you would see shit that would make you fucking shake. Some of that stuff, I wouldn't know how to do some of that stuff today practically. We'd have to do some kind of digital stitch. We'd have to, you know, we'd put our wires on. We'd do our safety pads and erase them.

We'd do all the gags that we can modernly do. So there's that, right? That's the attitude you approach. Like, how do you, you know, turn, like, Tiano Stuntone, his name was Vincent, a great French stuntman who was doubling for this whole thing, fights, and he's the one that did the crazy stair falls. Vincent did the first take. He did launched it,

made it literally 10 steps and got hung up in the railing stopped, but he had hit so hard. We're like, Oh my God. Like I stopped and like, okay. So even having been except man, all of a sudden my coordinators were like,

okay, is this, we're still good to do this. Cause that looked like I've seen some stair falls my day, but that one looked pretty big. And Vincent just looks, there's no, you know,

he's got the padding, he's got the gel packs, but, you know, 90% stunts is talent, right? It's not just recklessly throwing stuff out. It's, you know, it's not a stunt if you're the athletic ability of this individual, right? You know what I mean? Like now you got for any one of the regular people. Yeah, you don't want to throw on stairs but for this guy vincent who's so physically gifted and mentally you know um strong to do something like that to get up shake it off and go no i got this one he went even bigger on the second take and that's what's in the movie we have a cable cam ready to go and he goes three two you're like oh my god is he ever going to land

like yeah um on the day we actually had some of the crew go, ah, like, you know, like, um, there is a lot of that that goes, but I think to the second part of your, your, your question, safety is a methodology. It's systematic. Safety is not saying let's be safe. Safety is not just a pad. Safety is an awareness. Safety is a system. So when I say that, everybody wants to be safe. Like everybody looks for the obvious. Everyone knows don't walk onto the ladder. Everybody knows don't stand in front of the car. What happens is safety is an attitude and a systematic response to an environment. The whole crew has to be switched on. It's very easy to

get lulled into acquiescence of, you know, boredom because you think the stunt teams are doing it so well that you don't notice. Like Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton. Like the trick on set, because the guys are getting so good and we're doing it, everyone gets complacent. We're like, oh, no, no, no, that's the wrong time. When everything's going smoothly, that's when you have to turn it up a notch. We know that, like, you can ask any of my crew on set, I am, after 15 years of being

a stunt coordinator, I can't switch it off. Like, I'm ready to grab the stand, look up, like, you can't switch off. Like even in my day-to-day life, like, you should see me try to drive on the 405, like, sometimes I just don't drive because I can't deal with it. Like, we're in that safety mode where we know the danger. Real safety, real issues happen because of human error. They happen because we get complacent. Everybody understands not to stand next to the explosion. That's not where you get bit.

You get bit on overseeing or having this group think of, it'll be fine, don't worry about it, or not foreseeing what could happen. Cars go in reverse. When you move video village to the left or to the right, if the car is still going in that way, no matter how much you're missing laterally, the car is still going in your direction. There's only one safe area behind the vehicle where the car cannot go.

That is it. Any other spot in that 200, you know, 359 degree thing is a danger zone. Like there's no amount of group think and complacency. They'll make that safe. So we always tell when we're training our stunt teams and we're training our people, assumption and complacency get people killed. That's it. So when you say safety, it's not about putting a wire guy at a pad. It's an attitude that everyone has to foresee what can, and you have to accept that no matter what, it's like any belief system, right? You can have faith and believe 99%, but there is that 1% reality that you don't know. None of us are

omniscient. So you have to accept, especially when people's like, like this is reality. We're not talking about faith or ideal philosophy or ideology. We're talking about physics and the universe. We actually have the universe does not give a fuck. Like if something falls above you, it hit you in the head, and there's a chance it will kill you. When you are hit by 2,000 pounds of metal, mass times acceleration, that's force. That's a real thing. There's no joke about it. When you see a stunt guy being hit by a car, that is a man, a human, being hit by a 2 a 2000 chunk of steel moving at 20 miles an hour. That's force. Like that's for real. Now, granted we've rehearsed, we've put safety pads on,

but that is, that's a real thing. If you have that and you always know that there's a 1% chance, at least a 1% chance that you don't know what could happen, you are extra safe. It's when you go, I've done this a thousand times. He's going to land right there. You don't know. And then when you don't, people get hurt. You can never assume. And you have to accept that even the best of us don't know. So when, you know, you call them, you're the expert, you're the stunt guy. The director says, where's this car going to land? And, you know, you don't want to go, I don't know, man, it's physics.

You got to go look at this speed at this, it's going to land in this area. So we should have everybody, you, you, you put the safety margins on and you have to let everybody know, like look, if the stunt guy doesn't drive at that exact speed, if the explosive packet wasn't packed the right way, if he has to swerve less, if the steering column, if the tire pressure is right, there is a chance it goes a little here. So we're going to be really safe and pull it back. It's always the same when we hear about every accident on set, it's always the same. Well, we did it a thousand times, it landed. Okay, not you just hit you thought you assumed you didn't put the extra

thing in because you ah you didn't have time 90 of the fatalities that happened in stunts were like either high falls or hitting the back of the head because they thought it was okay and it was only a five mile an hour thing or it was just an easy 20 foot fall to the pad but they didn't secure down the apple box because we're losing the light we have to go so you really think about it safety is a human factor thing and who's what's the main cause of all the access human you know the human factor so when safety is defined by your humanness and it's also the reason things go wrong is the human factor that should tell you something about how to how to take the attitude a long long-winded thing but i'm anal about safety and stuff no no it's i it's why i asked because i know you've

thought about it a lot and it's it's fascinating to watch you make these movies when we're on the set we go beyond like even my stunt course today will say like look we've rehearsed it we've done like i get it i get and i'm it has people sometimes think that my questioning or when you question orders you question thing it's an attack on them and that's where again the accent you the accent, you're like, Hey man, I don't, I don't want like, Hey, this is your interview. I don't want to tell you how to interview, but I just got to, and you're like, well, what do you mean? I've done this a thousand. And you go, because I don't want to offend you. We stopped having the talk. Right. And we haven't solved, we didn't solve anything. Did we? No, we just have any notes. If you have any notes for me,

fire away. Right. So you're like, okay, look, I don't want to offend you. I don't do anything like that. But like, is there, or is there not a chance that this goes here? Well, yeah. If the guy messes up, okay. Is there a chance the guy messes up? Well, no, he's the best guy, but you know, something could always happen. All right. Is there a chance something could always happen? Well, no, you know, we've locked everything off, but you know, you know, a squirrel could run for, okay. Is there a chance a squirrel could happen? Well, we're in the woods. Of course it could. All right. So is it 1% chance that all those things could happen? What do you say? We just move the fucking crew a little that way and

we'll be fine. Okay. Like, that's my point. Like it's easy to talk yourself out of safety, but then when something happens, everybody's throwing their hands up going, of course it happened. You know, you should, that was his, he told us it was saying like look we all knew we all were too lazy to move everybody 10 feet that way what do you say we just fucking all accept that we're not the omniscient deity that knows where the action gods are going to put the car so let's just be safe and do the smart thing and just get behind the fucking car to your point yes there are a lot of bruises on john wicks there are a lot of that, but we've been super fortunate, and I won't even say it to piss the movie gods off,

but we've been very good with both humans and animals. We've done well in the safety division. Two quick ones to close us out. One, a yes or no question. Is this the last John Wick film you will direct? It's a great question. Nothing. You'll just blank me okay we end every episode of this show Chad by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing that they've seen I know you're a cinephile what you seen anything good lately

oh the last great thing um look man all I know is after I get back from this press tour I'm gonna land I'm gonna watch uh I'm gonna watch the new season of Ted Lasso. I don't know why. That movie makes me laugh. I'm an optimist at most and a romantic. To see something on TV that I know it's crazy coming from you, but that's a great thing.

Lately, wow. I'm trying to think of something that really... I'm kind of really into Asian cinema, so I saw this super crazy, I think it was Operation Wolf Hunting or something like that, this Korean action movie that was batshit crazy that I thought was really entertaining in the craziest of ways.

Is it Project Wolf Hunting? Is that it? Yeah, Project Wolf Hunting. That's it. I really like Gary Oldman's Slow Horses too. I thought that was cool on TV. That was great. Oh yeah, that is a little bit of a spy version of John Wick in some ways. It's Gary Oldman's Slow Horses too. I thought that that was cool on TV. That was great. Oh yeah, that's like a,

that is a little bit of a spy version of John Wick in some ways. It's Gary Oldman, man. Who couldn't, you know? Everyone! Come on. Chad, thanks so much and congrats again. Sure. Thank you very much, man.

See ya. Thanks to Chad. Thanks to our producer, Bobby Wagner, for his work on this episode. Next week, CR is back. We're drafting yet again, this time from the year 2008. We'll see you then.