The Rewatchables - ‘John Wick’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Shea Serrano

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Shea Serrano are thinking they’re back after rewatching the 2014 action-thriller hit ‘John Wick,’ starring Keanu Reeves, Michael Nyqvist, and Alfie Allen. Watch this episode on our Ringer Movies YouTube channel! Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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find out more at apple.com slash health. Apple Watch is not a medical device and should not be used as a substitute for professional medical advice. The rewatchables is brought to by the Ringer podcast network where you can find the watch with Chris Ryan. You used to be able to find Shea Serrano, but he's back.

Oh my God. It's like John Wick. It's like how John Wick used to come back. Shea Serrano, who used to be on a bunch of the early years of the rewatchables. Now, do some plugs really quick before we get into the pod. What do you got?

All right. I have a new book that just came out. It's called Wehrwolf Lawyer, which it's exactly what it sounds like, Bill. It's about a lawyer for werewolves. That's the guy they call when they get arrested and charged with a crime. Amazing.

That just came out. Congrats. You know, I'm doing a bunch of other things, but that's the main one. But I'm so happy to be here and see you and Chris looking just so handsome, so handsome, both of you? we couldn't bring you back unless we did a banger

and there's a banger coming. It's one of the great action movies of the 21st century. It's the re-shot caller with Jay Serrano. John Wick is next. I lost everything. It's not what you did, son. It's who you did it to. Nobody?

But nobody. It's John Wick. October 24th. Hey, John. People keep asking if I'm back. Yeah, I'm thinking I'm back. John Wick. How gets your laundry?

No one's not good. It's October 24th. All right, guys, so we were all working together in 2014 at Grantland when this movie came out. It was football season. It was October. The NBA was starting as well. I was just coming off of a three-week suspension. We were working on the Grantland Basket Hour.

I can't say Keanu Reeves was on the radar. He was in a little bit of a career slump, but this beautiful movie came out, and somebody that we used to work with who ran the culture for us, Mark Lassanti, was like, this movie's amazing you got to see it in the theater. And I was like, all right, I'll get to it.

And it really just kind of pushed it aside, didn't see it until it made whatever its cable run. And then 10 years later, it's just part of our lives. C.R., When did you see it? Did you see in the theater? I saw it in the theater and I saw it in the theater with like no expectations.

I was like, this seems like it's going to be a cool action movie to watch. Like at that point, Keanu Reeves was like kind of cranking them out, right? Like he had a couple of martial arts movies that year or like in the last couple of years around then. And I was like, this is the story with Keanu Reeves. Is that every time you think he's out, he pulls you back in? Is that like every time there's like a couple year lull and you're like, oh, I guess Keanu Reeves is just chilling. He's just coasting. And what a great life.

There he is eating a sandwich on the sidewalk in L.A. And then he just bangs one of these out, whether it's point break, whether it's Matrix, whether it's this. It's like he's just like got this sixth sense where he can come back after like five, six, seven, eight, ten years with a new character and a new way of making movies. That's just so incredible. Shade, you seen the theater? I didn't see it in a theater. I saw it at home. I saw it because Chris Ryan told me to see it.

matter of fact. He messaged me. I tried to find it in Google. Like when Google had Google chat. Oh, G chat. Yeah. G chat. He was like just out of nowhere. Bing. Have you seen John Wick? You got to check this shit out. It's incredible. And so I put it on my list. I was teaching at the time still. I was working part time at Grantland. And so still teaching. And I, you know, I got to it when I got to it at the house when it was on available for rent. And it just, it was incredible. It was so good. I'm so excited to talk about it. Yeah, it's weird when you have the sleeper cult movies that are also, like, amazing when you're watching them. And even in the moment, the first time you're watching and you're going, I don't understand. Why isn't this movie a bigger deal? Why aren't more people talking about this? You turn it, it's almost like you're drinking the Kool-Aid. The movie's not even over yet.

The first time I saw this, and I think my dad was on it. My dad might have even seen the theater because he, you know, he's a Keanu guy. He's a five o'clocker guy. Your dad's on the forums, man. I think he was the one that told me about it. in Losanti, but it just kept going, it kept going. It was everything I wanted. And it hits had a really weird time for action movies.

I had done for Greenland that year, I'd done the action movie championship belt. And I think the last couple years had gone to Liam Neeson. But we were moving into this nostalgia action thing with like the expendables. And it was almost like

we were kind of repeating movies we made with stars we made. And it just felt like we were in between eras. And part of that piece was like, I don't know where this is going. Here are some possible candidates. Keanu Reeves was not a candidate. But then you think about from point breaks, 1991, this movie comes out in 2014.

Then he starts making Wick for the next 10 years. This is, Shay, this is like a Kareem Abdul-Jabbar type action movie career. This is three full decades of the same person making different kind of action movies, right? Yeah, this series, when he shows up with John Wick, this cements him as the greatest modern action movie star that we've had. You know, there's the Stallone Schwarzenegger era. That's a whole different thing. But from then to now, from the 90s to now, it's a whole new batch of guys.

And this movie here makes him untouchable because he has, as you mentioned, point break. He has the Matrix. He has speed. He has the John Wick series. He's the guy. He's the king of the mountain right now. It's unbelievable. Yeah, Schwarzenegger, Chris, would you have Schwarzenegger's peak is probably higher.

But the Keanu career, it almost turns into a LeBron versus MJ argument where LeBron had a better career, but MJ's peak was higher. And I think with Keanu, it's the same thing. Like, it's just, when you talk about three straight decades, that's nuts. I think that you can make the argument that, like, as commercial appeal goes in box office, like, Schwarzenegers hold on, like, American movies was bigger. But I think Keanu revolutionized action movies twice. at least in the America. And partially by like interpreting a lot of Asian genre like filmmaking styles and bringing them over to the states and popularizing them.

But like to do Matrix, it would be enough. Like that would be the crowning achievement of any action star. And then to do it again with WIC and both times I feel like he brought those movies out. Those movies came at a point where action movie fans were really craving something new. And that's the thing is you're talking about Taken. it felt like action movies might have been getting kind of relegated to dump you area where they're all vigilante movies which is totally cool. I watch those movies all the time. But I have this memory of when WIC came out and Wicked itself is a vigilante movie of wanting something new, of wanting like

the action movies to take a step. And he kind of seems to intuit when that time is and how to do it. Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, there were pieces of this and cult movies and overseas movies that, you know, like the raid too. But we hadn't seen it really in a mainstream way. I wrote the, so when I wrote the action movie belt piece, which was in the spring of 2014, and I had the four rules of what makes an action star. Rule number one was over everything else.

I need to believe our hero can kick everyone's ass in any conceivable situation at any given time. And he needs to believe this too. And then the analogy I used was, imagine the scariest dude in the planet beating up an entire bar and then he eventually comes after our beloved hero. If I am not 100% convinced that my dude is winning that fight, then he can't capture the belt.

But this is the key piece. This rule disqualifies A-listers like Harrison Ford, Tom Cruise, Paul Newman, Keanu Reeves. I put him in the paragraph. And then I listed a whole bunch of other people. And I think that's what was missing from the Keanu action thing, even though he was always like kind of the every man in these action things, right? Or Matrix is like we're in an alter universe.

But this movie, he becomes, it becomes believable. He can go into a nightclub and kill 25 people in seven minutes. Shay, did you feel like he, before this movie, did you feel like he had that in him? I felt like he had a good amount of fight confidence in him, right? He's a believable fighter. But prior to, prior to this, he had not done this version of fighting. He has like a fist fight or two in point break or whatever. Speed he's throwing himself around.

It's a different form of physicality of action in those movies. In The Matrix, he's fighting, but he's also like Kung Fu Jesus or whatever. Like there's some mysticism to it. But in this one, this is like very real world. There's no tricks. There's no anything. He's just doing all the stuff. And yeah, when you see him do it the first time, when you see him in that first big 12 on one,

inside his house where he's just pissed off killing everybody, your hands are on your head and you're like, how is Keanu Reeve doing this? What is going? Like, you weren't certain it was in there and then he does it and you're like, oh my God, this is, why did you not do this for the last 25 years? Well, the cool thing about the, Shay,

you mentioned that first fight scene in Keanu's house and Wick's house. The introduction of John Wick is he gets his ass kicked. So there is like this really cool grounding of the character where it's like, yeah, he can get jumped and like, out of, he's out of shape and maybe he wasn't expecting this and all this stuff. And like, that completely, it changes like a calibration of the character because in the matrix, it's like he basically taps into something. And then for the rest of the movie, he's on wires. He's got unlimited bullets. He can take, you know, he can duck bullets. It's like,

it's a superhero to, for lack of a better term. But Wick is like everything WIC does is governed by the laws of the movie. You know, it's like he only has so many bullets. They're shooting these, master shots rather than all these close-ups. So you're actually seeing Keanu punch and get punched. And it just makes it all feel so real. You know, I thought I had John Wick too ahead of John Wick one. I don't. But I actually think this is the rare case where I go one, two, three, four for the Wick franchise. Like for movies I like, which usually like rocky, I'm like three, four, one, two, like seven. And this one,

the more you watch one, you're just like, this is the best one. It's a, it's a hundred to one minutes, so it passes the Craig Coralbeck test of, can you just tell me this movie in less than a hundred minutes around that?

The piece that I forgot, because this movie's, the 10-year anniversary is in October, so it's coming up. I forgot how dead Keanu's career was. Like, it's dead. And when you do the research of it,

he's like, yeah, I was in a slump and other people like, yeah, Keanu was in a slump, so it was easier to get him. This was beyond a slump. The movies he made before this movie. The private lives of Pippa Lee, easy to assemble, Henry's Chime, Generation Um, Man of Tai Chi and 47 Ronan, which bombed. And then Extreme Pursuit, which I don't even remember what that was.

And then it leads to John Wick. So this is beyond a slump. His career's over. And it felt like even if his career was over, it's like, I'm good with that. Keanu had a great run. What a great 20 plus years. Like, congrats to him. And then he comes back with another

unbelievable run that I think cements it. The thing is, is that, like, yeah, you're right. He's like a hair's breath away from probably doing red box. He's about to be like Engadi, directed by Kevin Connolly. Or he's about to just be cranking out three action movies a year where he shows up for four days on the set and he gets paid and then he goes home. But it's like, I think Keanu was always going to have the part of his career that where he's like this iconic burnout kind of hipster surfer guy and he could have always maybe gone back

to that and done comedies or done Bill and Ted type movies or whatever. But like, yeah, as far as an action star, it seemed like he might have been cooked. Yeah. Shea, once upon a time, you wrote a lot about action people. And I'm, and John Wick and Keanu Reeves were involved in that book. What's your, what's your big picture Keanu as you put him against? against all of the other people from the last 50 years. What's different about him? What's different about him is he feels a little bit real, a little bit more real than when you're watching Schwarzenegger

and Commando jump out of an airplane from 200 feet and land on the ground and then run away, right? I thought Chris brought up a great point of, in this series in particular, he's governed by like the rules of the movie. There's a part in this one when he's in the nightclub and he's going crazy and he's like dot dot killing everybody.

And then he runs out of bullets. And he just is like, shit. And now he's, now it's a fist fight. Like that's sort of stuff that he's doing here. We saw it for the very first time when Bruce Willis did it and die hard.

The like iconic scene in that is when he has to run across the glass cover floor with no shoes on. And then we see him pulling the glass out of his feet and he's in pain. and all of the movies before then

if Stallone does that, if Schwarzenegger does that, they're pulling the glass out with no reaction at all. This doesn't bother me one single bit. Bruce Willis does it and he's like, oh my God, this hurts so bad and you're feeling the same sort of way.

That's what Keanu has here. He's just a newer version of that. It just feels like a real thing and it becomes so much fun to watch. You know, I was thinking about it watching the movie last night and thinking about some of the other roles he's had. and it's almost like there's like three different versions of Keanu, right?

There's like point break Keanu I really enjoy. There's some unintentional comedy mixed into it, which I think is the quality of that Arnold and Stallone and von Dam and Segal where you're like, I really like this guy, but also it's kind of funny when he does this and you're kind of just peanut gallering it as it going. So he has that. He also had that matrix side where it's like there's something mystical and different

about him that you can't really put your eye on. Otherworldly, yeah. Like, it wouldn't make sense for a Slice Stallone to be the lead in the Matrix, right? There's only certain characters who could have been that, so he could do that. But then he also had this, that McQueen side that I think he really taps into. And a lot of the research about John Wick was like, it was way more overwritten than it ended up being, where you would take like these scenes with dialogue and they would just strip them back and do the Steve McQueen.

let's just have Keanu do nothing or say one word. And a lot of the stuff he's doing just with his face and physically is just really hard to do. We talked about it in earlier podcast with Tarantino was writing about McQueen and how sometimes less is more. And I don't know if Keanu fully tapped into that in a movie until John Wick with that kind of less is more. Let me just carry this by I'm a handsome guy who's been famous for a long time. I'm physically, I'm not imposing, but you believe in me, and I'm just going to, I'm going to carry something here. It's a really hard thing to pull off.

And I don't know, are there any under 40 actors that we have now that can do it? Like, even with Rebel Ridge, I felt like Aaron Pierre kind of had that quality a little bit, right? Where he, there was something, he didn't have to say a lot, but you were really interested in what he was doing. And for whatever reason, Keanu figured it out for John Wick. It's the perfect story for that kind of performance. too, though, because you just need to know that this is a guy who's had everything taken

away from him, and he's going to take everything away from the people who did that. I mean, to Shea's point about John McLean pulling the glass out of his feet and limping for the rest of the movie, Keanu Reeves' John Wick doesn't talk because his dog got killed. He's done

talking. Like, it wouldn't make sense if he was a chatty-cathy, the entire movie about like, oh, hey, have you guys seen Vigo? You guys have done some great work in the bathhouse, blah, blah. Like you don't want him having... He shouldn't have one-liners. He should be stoic.

He should be the samurai, and it works perfectly. A little bit of the secret sauce on here, too, is that he's funny in it. And he knows he's being funny when he just would like, we're going to have this incredible action sequence. And then I'm going to have a normal conversation with somebody, like nothing. And then back to, like, that's... They do that throughout the series. I think the funniest one, they pay off the dead dog in part three when, Hallie Berry's dog gets shot.

And she goes crazy because everybody. And she's like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And he just goes, I get it. And watching that in the theater, everybody erupts. Oh, my God, this is incorrect. Like, he's a funny guy, but he's not doing the funny thing. So, Bill, you like the WIC movies in order they were released.

Like, that's your power rating. I liked when they were, I liked one, two started pushing it. I thought three was a little over the top. And I get it. You're making sequels. We watch it with Shay. and I are beloved Fast and Furious franchise. You just keep up in the stakes and then eventually there's nowhere to go and you just,

you become insane. I like this version of John Wick is my favorite. And I think when you read about how they made it, how they were so strapped with the budget, how they were basically scrapping left and right just to get shots. They're reusing stunt people. You know, they use the people in the beginning and it's hard for them to see and they're just reusing them. One guy gets killed.

One guy gets killed four times in the nightclub. They just say it basically 10 stunk guys. They just used over and over again. But what it led to inadvertently was I think one of the biggest reasons this movie works so well is the wide shots. Yeah. They didn't have like enough cameras to shoot stuff with like. They had no coverage. And I think as the Wicks series went along, I felt like they lost that.

And it just became more and more almost matrixy. What I love about this is you really, C.R. always talks about like the best action. movie you know where you are at the all times like we need to do that nightclub and it's wide and he's doing all these different things yeah yeah yeah shay has there been another scene like that can you think of another action movie scene that's as well executed and as complicated as that i mean you could pick anything from the raid they they do the same trick there you have uh you you can grab a tony jaw movie the stairwell scene uh when like that that sort of thing yeah but this is all as chris pointed out them paying homage to Asian cinema, them trying to do their version of it here, which we then see them, like literally, they bring in the guys from the raid and they let those guys beat up John Wick.

Like, they just kicked the shit out of them. And that's them saying, you guys did it first and you guys did the best, where we want to honor that. You know what I mean? I think with regard to the order that they are for me, I have number three as my favorite one. Interesting. How come? It was just so much fun to watch him. By part three, it just starts with him on the run immediately,

straight into this gigantic knife fight scene where they're just grabbing knives off the wall and throwing them at each other. You have a horse fight that's in there. You have all of this crazy stuff happening. You have the introduction of the new coins and the adjudicator, and they're just building the world bigger and bigger. But what did happen for me is when I rewatch this one recently,

originally I had it three two one four and then now I guess because enough time has passed when I rewatch this one I'm like man this is better this is this is definitely better than two I'm starting to feel as you as you mentioned with the Fast and the Furious thing the bigger the movies get the more I kind of want to go back to the original version where it's smaller and more a little more intimate and they do such a great job of like parceling out so little information than the first one just enough to get you to follow this them down the alley or whatever. But yeah, I started to feel that too. You know, that's one of the great things that we take the Continental for granted. It's become this whole universe that they've

built out over the four years. There's some stuff they do in this movie that's just so smart. It's just hard for me to believe it was a script written by somebody who had never really had a break writing scripts, right? It's the directors and it's two directors and only one got credit are basically the Matrix stunt coordinators. But there's all this smart stuff how they execute it where, you know, we know from everybody's reaction, it's like, oh shit, you're working again? It happens like five, six times during the movie. Like the policeman comes over and he just sees the body.

He's like, got a problem here, John? No, no, we're good. And it's just, you're just like, oh shit. Like this guy really must be a badass. Even when the son calls the dad and he's like, yeah, I killed, it was John Wick's car. and the guy's like, oh. And you just, they set up the sense of, what is this? Who is this guy?

And then they execute it. Sierra, I think this is probably the best original action movie this century would be my take. I can't think of another one. And you got to separate the sequels. You're just talking about a movie that stands alone. For me, most satisfying are this, fast and furious one. taken. The Equalizer.

Man on fire. Yeah, Equalizer's probably up there too. Just like, just this small group of just, wow, this is everything I want when I want an action movie. Yeah. What, Shay, what years the raid? Shoot, I don't even know it offhand. Is it like 10?

Was it in the 2000s. Yeah. Wasn't it? I mean, the raid and this are the two, are the two action movies that I probably go back to the most. And I think both both have that same quality that you're talking about. talking about, Raid 2 becomes basically this Godfather-esque epic as well as an action movie. It's just like the John Wick movies just kind of get increasingly inflated to the point where I

actually, so it's interesting to hear you guys rank them because I go one, four, two, three in my ranking, I think at this point, because I think four is like, what if John Wick was, was an opera, you know, like, what if John Wick was almost like this incredible fantasy, you know? but yeah, both raid and Wic kind of feel like they're coming out of nowhere and they're being beamed from like an alternate world where you're just like, I didn't know people could do that. I didn't know dudes could fight that way.

I didn't know you could do Kung that way. I didn't know that Keanu Reeves could take punches like that or fall off of a balcony and you can hear his hip crack when he lands. I didn't know you could do that in action movie. So I agree. I'd probably put WIC up there if it's not one, it's two. It's between this, it's between Wic and the raid.

That's the argument. Yeah, if you're going to ding fast and furious, it's basically point break with cars, right? It's, I wouldn't say it's like the single most original movie ever made. If you're going to ding Taken, and Taken's amazing. Shea and I did that. I think that was in the first year we did Taken. Loved it. That movie has some dopey parts, right?

And it's just all of a sudden, you know, it's not perfect, but I love it. and I love the, how simple it is. And I think that's what action movies, when they're really at their best, and this movie is a good example, right? John Wick lost his wife, loves this car, loves this new puppy that he got.

It's really all he's got. He just wants to retire and have a car and a dog. And this is a little like what, same thing with Rebel Ridge, where it's like a why didn't they leave him alone movie. Yeah. Just, he just, just sleep him alone. He just wants to get gas.

He just wants to house train this puppy, maybe teach him out and catch a tennis ball and then they had to fuck with them and now all bets are off and that's always the best possible premise for an action movie. We're going to take a break and then I want to talk about a couple other things. This episode is brought to you by McDonald's.

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Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant. 18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools. All right. So other reasons John Wick jumped out. We mentioned the continental. I think what's so cool about John Wick won is there's just these little

subtle things that just feel like you want the backstory and everything. You're like, what the fuck are these gold coins? Yeah. What is I need to make a dinner reservation for 12? What's going on with the dude from the wire behind the counter? Is he a good guy? Is he a bad guy? Why do they have this?

Why can't I kill anybody in the hotel? And they're just all of these rules come out. And you're like, how the fuck did they think of all this? And I think they realized that because Wick 2, they blow it out. But Shay, when you saw this movie, had you ever seen anything like that before where there's just like these hints of this alternate universe, basically? No, not done this well. I think the most impressive part of it is they give you enough that you understand. They don't over-explain anything.

They give you enough that you understand, but not enough that you know everything. Like the coins are a perfect example. Or the dinner reservation for sure. As soon as he says, I need a dinner reservation for 12, you know he's telling that guy, I just killed 12 people and I need you to come clean them up. And then they come. And he gives them just one coin per person. And that's it. And you automatically know, okay, whatever he's involved in, this is the currency that they use and this is how they talk to each other.

And then he goes to the hotel and he asks Lance Reddick, the concierge. Is it the same owners? And you know right there he's asking them, the rules are still in place, right? like I'm still good to kid. Like, I'm safe here. Like, you're watching the movie and you don't know anything, but they say one or two lines and you know enough to follow along. And yeah, watch it.

What about the bouncer when he's like, hey, did you lose some weight? Yeah. Kevin Nash. And the guy's like, yeah, I lost about 20. And it's like he's clearly telling him. There's 20 bad guys or 60, whatever he says. There's all these bad. Like they're talking in some code that I don't even really understand.

How do you even learn this code? That's one of that, I guess, the great action movie. I have a lot of questions about how we're, communicating the rules and regulations and just like what people need to know. But yeah, like I was trying to think of other movies that do this. There's a little bit of it inborn. Whereas Matt Damon's character keeps like learning a little bit more about himself, you then learn more about like the programs that he's with.

And it's got kind of the similar sort of like people can get activated by their cell phone where they're like, oh, now I have to leave my class that I'm teaching to go assassinate Jason born. There's some other stuff. I'm sure I'm forgetting some like but that that like that whole it's like basically if you made a movie with like Christopher Walkins character and man on fire had like a huge role where it's like the guy who is like the handler, the facilitator, the guy can get him weapons. It used to work with him. I love that part about Wick with the Continental. I think the difference in this and those ones part of the reason this one is so appealing is because those ones are always like relegated or regulated by the government of some sort.

Yeah, it's like an off-book CIA program. Yeah. Yeah, some dark agency or whatever. And this one is all, it's the underworld. It's the underworld. It's the underworld we could do whatever we want. And they just build it up so nice around them. You get bounties. I love a good bounty. Love a bounty. So Wick spawns three sequels. It spawns a prequel TV series. It spawns a spondes a Spinoff film, ballerina, video games, comic books. It also dives into this universe of people I liked from this specific time. Like we have people from The Wire. We have people from Oz.

We have the lead from Deadwood. We have Tyra from Friday Night Lights. They're just like, hey, what shows did you like? Here's another person. Kevin Nash. They're just kind of smartly building it out. The cast is really good. Leguizamo.

Alfie was on Game of Thrones around this time. Supposed he did a one day, he did a one day, 15-hour shoot and just filmed all of his car scenes. Willem Defoe? Out of nowhere? Perfect. Just with like a huge part. And Bridget Moynihan. And our guy, Dean Winters, as Vigo's attorney.

So anyway, so the screenwriter was Derek Kolstad. And he had an idea basically inspired by a couple terrible revenge movies he watched. But originally the character was supposed to. to be old. And he was thinking it was like a Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman type of role. And then once Keanu became involved, that change. But he, you know, he took stuff he liked from a whole bunch of stuff, including the killer by John Wu and spaghetti westerns and all kinds of things. The only time that ever seems to pop up is when Vigo's kids and that generation of guys don't seem to know who John Wick is. Because I think in the original screenplay, it was,

going to be like people had kind of forgotten about him and not and and maybe thought it was like a fairy tale or something and that's because he was going to be 75 when he like shows up or whatever but like that's the only one and it almost like strains cruduli where you're like how do you guys not know about john wick i had that in nip-picks yeah i think he was conceived as like the old man with jeff bridges yeah that kind of uh thing so yeah so they barely had enough money they finished the movie cut and cost left and right and in August 2014 which is three months for the movie came out still had no distributor then Lionsgate got involved offered them you know all right well no upfront payment um not that many release and and then all of a sudden they were

at Austin Film Festival and Fanatics Fest fantastic fest and Buzz built and they got to like 42 screens and it kept going and ended up making money. 25 million dollar budget made $85 million. Sadly, no Roger Ebert review because he had passed away at this point. C.R., what do you think, what do you think Roger Eber would have thought? I was afraid to put AI in on this one. I think he would have liked it, but found it mind-numbing and a little thin. Okay.

You know, I think Roger, Roger was a. character guy. You'd love to maybe know a little bit more about Helen. You know, what was she? Should I have a chat, GBT for this? Yeah, I'm going to stay away from it. Okay. All right. Today's most rewatchable scene is brought to you by Paramount Plus. A mountain of movies awaits on Paramount Plus. She, I don't know if you've heard of Top Gun Maverick, Mission Impossible Fallout, or Gladiator. If you heard of those three? I think so. They're on Paramount Plus. Yeah. Some good ones, including Scream Six, Smile, A Quiet Place Day One. movies for the kiddos like Paw Patrol the movie, Indora and the Lost City of Gold.

Discover something new every week on Paramount Plus. Most rewatchable scene. This was... I had too many. I think we know who's going to win. But I wanted to shout out a few. The gas station interaction with Theon Lovejoy, Vigo, Son. Love it.

Love it. How much? Excuse me. How much for the car? She's not for sale. Oh, I love dogs. You just want to get some of my son. Oh, this suka, not.

Like what I'm going to? It goes from there, and we're like, oh, no, this isn't good. He just wants to get some gas. Come on, guys. Stop buying his car. Then he does this crazy driving thing. I don't know if the puppy's still in the car or not at that point. But he's doing, like, just these awesome driving tricks.

And then... John Wick, a premium guy? like high grade tecron like you think he's got to put good juice in that thing or what it's funny if he just got like the middle gas yeah it's like a little better than the worst one but not you guys premium is just a myth right it's all middle and then uh we get the break in but i think just the important thing i wanted to point out is 16 minutes the entire movie's been set up and we know everything, which I think is really hard to do. They're just like, boom, we got credits. We know who all of our bad people are. And now we, John Wick has a purpose and we're ready to go.

Also, this isn't for most rewatchable, but I heard you struck my son. Yes, sir, I did. May I ask why? Yeah, he stole John Wick's car and killed his dog. Oh. Oh. That's all you need. That's all you need. All right. First, real rewatchable. Vigo yelling at his son and explaining John Wick. We call him Baba Yaga. The boogeyman?

Well, John wasn't exactly the boogeyman. He was the Juan just said to kill the fucking boogeyman. John is a man of focus. Wonderful. The Baba Yaga. Call him Baba Yaga. He wasn't the boogeyman. He was the one you sent to kill the boogeyman.

As he's telling this, John Wick is like, I'm going to get a giant Jack Kemmer, and I'm just going to wail away at my basement floor. And it's like, what's he doing? Shea, your thoughts on this scene. Oh, it's incredible. It might be the best character introduction

in an action movie that we've gotten, because you have this one guy who's very clearly an intimidating Russian gangster who's terrified. He knows his, He knows his son is dead. He's talking to a dead man. While this dad is telling the son, you're going to die, we're cutting away, as you mentioned, to John Wick, in his basement with a sledgehammer,

just crashing into the ground over and over and over, and over, clearing out the rubble, opening the box, just full of guns and gold coins. And you're like, oh, fuck, I don't know what's going to happen, but it's not going to be good for Theon Lovejoy. That's what I know. Also, just the idea of the guy you send to kill the book. Bougyman is one of the most oh shit moments in action movie history. It's a little, it's a little tiny example of how they, in this series, they always go one step past where you think they're going to go.

Because so many other movies would have been like, yeah, he's the, he's the real life version of the Bougain. And they were like, no, he's not that. He's the, he's who kills the real life version of the Bougain. One level past where you think. Well, he also saw him kill three men in a bar with a pencil. He gave him an impossible task if he wanted to get away from his life, which John Wick then apparently pulled off. We don't even really know what the task was, but he must have just killed a hundred people. Yeah.

And then he calls John and John hangs up, but not before he tells his son, John will come for you. You will do nothing because you can do nothing. CR, do you have in your basement, do you have like under the cement just guns and Grantland Quarterly's for, for, to sell? If we're doing this, I was going to ask you if in your basement, do you have a Dell laptop buried under concrete for when you start writing columns again? They've enraged me. It's time to write a basketball column.

They said his fingers don't work anymore. They called him Baba Yaga. All right. Next one. Attack at Wickshouse. I think John Kel's 14 guys. I might have the wrong count. It was around 14. No, it's a dozen. It's 12. Is it 12? It's just dinner for the reservation for 12. Yeah, reservation for 12. Just a quick shout out to when he hammers the knife into the guy. That's really, that's really like we are in for something new, fresh, and exciting in the world of killing guys.

because all of the kills prior to that moment are fast. Boom, boom, boom. It's shooting the leg, shooting the chest, shooting the head, shooting the head, whatever. And then that last one, it takes 45 seconds for him to kill him. That's great. It's so good. Shea, do you feel like John Wick innovated some new killing techniques?

Because a couple things I noticed, really good at the eye contact with the person as he's finishing them off? We always watch these movies and we go, why didn't they just shoot them one more time in the head to make sure he's dead. John Wick's like, don't worry, I've got this.

He always has the extra headshot. And then the other thing is he's good at the tactical where like that later in the nightclub when he shoots the guy in the foot to get the guy to fall over so then he can shoot him in the head. Like he's thinking a step ahead. It's a little, you know, like Tom Brady,

like being like, I'm going to pull this corner down because I want to send the tight end into that spot. John Wick is, I don't think, I can't think of another action hero who was like two steps ahead of the villains. he sees more of the field than everybody else, that's for sure. Yeah.

And then the fact that he is using so much of his own body weight and counterweight in the fights is such a smart decision. Because as you mentioned before, he's not a big dude. We even see him with his shirt off and he's not covered in muscles or whatever. It's just a normal looking dude. But he starts whipping these guys around or putting them in these rear-necked chokes or arm bars and doing all this jiu-jitsu. And it's like, man, this is just so many good decisions in a row. CR is a black belt and judo.

Did you feel like the judo was realistic? I just appreciated that he never fought dirty. There's not a lot of nutshots. He never goes to tear someone's eye out. He only bites one thumb, you know? It's like this is a guy who, he played the game the right way. He did. It is true.

He is above the board. Was there a nutshot? I don't think there was. There might be one on Victor by the sink, but I couldn't tell if it was a nutshot or an ACL tear. Like, he goes right for the kneecap, but it was, I was really impressed rewatching this where I'm like, man, there's a couple of chances here.

You know John Wick has the pull the eyeball out move in his back pocket. Right. He did all out of the rides. And he never does it. He's just like, you know what? We're going to keep this one 100. And we're going to all feel good about how we fought at the end of the day. Shay, where do you stand on the broken appendage going sideways?

Are you an arm guy or a leg guy when you see that? Oh, man. I think I prefer to see an arm. But the leg is just... And it's like flapping. The leg is just a little too violent for me. I remember watching Harley Quinn when she broke that guy's leg. And I was like, oh, my God.

Oh, God. That had hurt so bad. I like a leg. I mean, I like an arm. Okay. Waste disposal dinner for 12. I don't know if you know this, but this was Winston Wolfe's startup company that he started in the late 90s.

It was his franchise? Yeah, it was a franchise. He wanted to branch out. He had made some money. He wanted to invest in something, get something for himself. Next scene, Wicks Revenge, the nightclub fight, starting with the aforementioned bathroom when he breaks the guy's leg. kills it, but just so many murders.

I didn't even know where to start with this. So from the second, he puts the gun to Francis's head outside of the nightclub. It's seven minutes until he gets thrown off the balcony. Seven minutes. And it might be the seven best sustained minutes in action movie history. It is unbelievable. I agree. And even the end where he, the stuntman just gets thrown.

It's clearly not Keanu. He turns his head. The guy just drops 20 feet. It's like a classic, I don't know how the fuck they just did that. That's not CGI. That guy just dropped onto a concrete floor. And Keanu wanted to do it and they wouldn't insure him for it. Right.

Keanu's like, just let me do it. Supposedly in the nightclub thing, Keanu had 104 degree fever. And they were like going to delay it a day. so he felt better. He's like, no, I just want to do it. Flu game. Flu game. Yeah, it was his flu game.

So we have in that sequence, Bill, I just give you the sort of breakdown. There's Francis the Dorman. There's killing Victor at the sink. There's the shootout in the baths where he shoots the half-naked guy in the chest and head. Yeah, I love that part.

Then there's like the dining area, the kind of like well, like the one with the overhead fluorescent lights kind of and everybody's running around with the red shirts and the black shirt in the black jackets, dance floor, and then there's the balcony. And it culminates with him getting thrown off the balcony. Dance floor is when it goes to another level. Unbelievable.

Because you're already like, this is awesome. And then it's like, oh, my God, there's a 2000, 2,000 person nightclub with pounding music. And he's just going to fucking kill this guy who can go through the gun. And then the balcony, it's really one of the greats. You agree with that, Shay, that this is up there, the best seven minutes ever? it's absolutely in the conversation. Watching him go into the viper pit

and it's just him surrounded, how are you going to get out of this alive? And he just mows through him. It's very much reminds me of in the Kingsman, the church killing scene there, except but this is you're killing other guys who are killers. You know what I mean?

Yeah. It's so good. I really like the end of Fast Five with the car chase when they're dragging the safe behind them, I think is really great. It's a different kind of action scene, but I thought, I think that's a really good, I think that's the best seven minutes of the fast series. I still don't understand how they did that.

There's probably some, there's probably a seven minutes stretch of Fury Road that could match up to this. So I guess I can distinguish this by saying, best seven minutes in an action movie that I've ever seen non-car division. Yeah. Oh, what about, what about the, uh, the, uh, the hospital scene in Hard Boiled when they go to the hospital.

Is that how long is that, though? That's like 30 minutes. Like 30 minutes straight. John Wu, the master. Yeah, we should pay tribute to him because a lot of this movie is pulled from better tomorrow. So much.

So much. I would put the three of us probably in the highest end of people who just absolutely love action movies. And to me, like the whole reason to watch these is when you have something

like the nightclub scene. And it's going, you're like, oh my God. Oh my God. And you're just like, I can't imagine having seen this in the theater. I honestly think I would have passed out. We should have done like the seven-minute nightclub scene, but do it as Manning cast. And like, she's like, they're in quarters. They're in quarters.

Well, so the nightclub scene ends. And we're like, whew, let's take a breath. And two more people are trying to kill him. There's one to foe across the thing trying to shoot it through the window. And then Miss Perkins comes in like just a crazy maniac trying to take them down. That scene I have as a rewatchable. The church robbery fire. The WIC gets captured.

I'm thinking I'm back. In that moment, I received some semblance of an opportunity to grieve on the law. And your son. Took that from me. Stole that from me. Killed that from me! People keep asking if I'm back, and I haven't really had an answer.

But now, yeah, I'm thinking I'm back. So you can either hand over your son, or you can die screaming alongside it. And then, uh, the final scene where Wick kills everybody and then Wick finds a dog at the end I think would be all the rewatchables unless you guys have anything else to add

we can pick our most rewatchable scene which I think is the nightclub right? I think it's important to point out when Willem Defoe shoots at him in the hotel he's helping him there he's warning him hey Perkins is in the room good luck you know what I mean like he's always watching out for him

what a great friend he was just always there You don't think there was 1% where he was like, you know, four millions a lot. I don't know. No, I don't think so. Because we see him make a similar shot later on through a closed window, hit a guy directly in the head to save John Wick. And he wouldn't miss through a clear window. You know what I mean?

Yeah. No, it's fair. I just wonder if he struggled with the decision at all. But then you see his house and it was like pretty nice house. I don't know. felt like maybe he was all set. He's going to help out his guy, Jonathan. What are the rules?

Are you allowed to shoot from outside of the continental to inside of the continental? No business. I don't think any business can be done on the grounds of the continental. Yeah, come on, Craig. They get very... But Defoe is not in the Continental.

No, true. You're killing someone in the continent. All right. Hey, he's still in the network. So we all have the nightclub fight? Yes. Okay. I'm going to make an argument for a different scene here.

And I'm going to give a reason why. I think the first time, the second time, the third time, watch this movie, it's absolutely the nightclub scene. Absolutely. It's unbelievable. But four, five, six times you've seen it and you watch it. I think it's not even the whole house fight. I think it's the last moments of the house fight when he kills the last guy. And then there's a knock on the door. Knock, knock, knock. And you see the police lights through the frosted glass. And you're watching this. As you just mentioned, we have, between the three of us, we probably

He's seen 65,000 action. We've all seen a version of this scene. Knock, knock, knock. The cops are there. The guy opens the door. Is everything cool? Yeah, it's fine. And then the cop catches a glimpse of like a foot on the ground,

pushes a door open, sees a dead body. And now he's got to kill the cops. Now he's got to kill the cop. And then now he's not only being chased by these killers, but also he's being chased by the cops. And like, we've seen this a ton of times. But when he opens a door and there's a dead guy there. and the cop is Jimmy is just like,

are you working, John? You working again? No, I just sorting some stuff out. I'll leave you B then. Good night, John. Good night, Jimmy. Like, that's the moment when the world opens up and you realize this is something special I'm watching.

This is a brand new thing I'm about to get into because it should have gone left and it went right. I think it's the most important part of the, movie because it sets the hook for everything that comes after. Just that one interaction, oh shit, okay, this is not, this is not going to go where I wanted to go or where I think it's going to go. You have to give yourself up to the movie and watch it now. That's a good case. I'm still going with him killing 130 people in the nightclub, but I thought you made a great case. Today's the best we're watchingful scene brought to by Paramount Plus. From action blockbusters,

the thrillers, the favorites for the whole family, finds something new to watch every week. A Mountain and movies awaits on Paramount Plus. Plan start at $7.99 a month. Start streaming now. We're going to take one more break and do the rest of the categories. This episode is brought to by Pure Michigan. In Grand Rapids, every moment feels like a scene worth replaying. Every Riverside stroll, every slow afternoon sipping small batch brews,

every guitar riff drifting out of the city's brand new amphitheater. This is a place where everything feels cinematic. Like you've stepped into a highlight reel that's yours to explore. ranked as the number one city on the rise from LinkedIn, Grand Rapids invites you to find a rhythm all your own. Season after season and pure Michigan. Find your season at experienceGR.com. This episode is brought to by the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in.

Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it big or small. So whether it's buying tickets to the game and grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% words on purchases. Say it with me. The active cash credit card from Wells Fargo. Be a two percenter. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms of play. So, Shea, we have a new category called What's the Most Blank Thing About This Movie from whatever year it came out? What's the most 2014 thing about this movie? So my initial answer was that we were all working together and Shea was teaching when this came out. That's a pretty good answer.

But I think it's, I think for me, it's Tyra's Miss Perkins. That's exactly what I have on my list, too. Adrian Pallicki, showing up. I think you're right, man. It feels so early 2010s of like, oh, I really like her. Oh, I hope. And it never really went the way I thought it was going to go with her. I thought she was going to be a bigger star.

Lance Radic, Ian McShane and Adrian Pallickey being like the three below the line stars is like, Oh, and Clark Peters. Yeah, the cast of this movie feels perfectly 2014. So I think that's the answer. What's age the best? Oh, can I just throw another one out for that category, Bill? I think that the digital technology is exactly right for the era. Like, there's not a ton of security camera footage.

There's not a ton of, like, dudes texting each other. You know what I mean? Like, it's kind of like, yeah. Yeah, it's right around, like, got mobile phones. It's a little bit more elevated than like the born. movies where they're just using Nokia's. But, like, this isn't quite like everybody pulls out their camera phone when John Wick starts shooting up a dance floor.

The other most 2014 thing about this movie is the same week it came out. Timmy Duncan and the Spurs were raising their 2014 title banishay. Yeah, baby. Yeah, baby was a good year in the Serrano house. Now 10 years later, you have the alien, Victor Wimbenyama. We're back. And dreams of more titles. You're back, baby.

Uh, what's age the best? The nickname Bobby Yaga. Bobby Yaga. I said that wrong. Bobby Yaga is the, uh, Russian boogeyman name. I never really caught on. Felt like we could have had an NBA star where it's like John Moran is Bobby Yaga. But do you think if, if we had an NBA star named Bobby Yaga, would you nail the pronunciation

of his name or would you just kind of picture it? I'd probably say Yaga half the time and some Jaya. And then Rissolu would be like, it's Yaga. It's Jagabille. Could we have, if there was a Russian star, I don't know. I'm just backpocket it if we ever get like the Russian version of Wemadiyama. The Continental, we talked about how great that is from a what's age of best standpoint. I have some more, but Shay, do you have any What's Age the Best that jumped out to you?

I think this is an addition to the Palliki thing. We were just talking about the entire show up. The moment that she has, she's such a snake in this movie. It's a great decision. Again, another great decision. They introduced this character, and she's just the one person willing to break every rule. Doesn't care. You can't predict what she's going to do.

When she goes into John Wick's room to kill him, she's face to face with him. She's a foot and a half away. She's got a grip on him, ready to kill him. And she tells him, you were always a pussy. She says that to the most feared hit, man. In the history of the world, no fear in her at all, no trepidation. no hesitation. You were always a pussy, and I'm going to kill you right now on this hallowed ground. I think watching this, she's like, there's a spotlight on her. She's great.

You know, speaking of 2014, Ms. Perkins really started the era of assassin empowerment. You know, it was really about betting on yourself. She was like, fuck these non-metal holes. Yeah. Yeah. I think she's one of the great irrational confidence characters ever. It was almost like, you know, like when Jason Terry just knocked out the 2011 heat, just like, I'm just going to take this 30 footer to win game five.

CR, what do you have for what stage is the best? I love that there's no cops in this movie except for Don from the newsroom. Like if there had been a whole other plot line about like the detective who's trying to solve this case, it would have slowed the movie down. You would have gotten involved with John Wick

trying to help the detective get the Russian mob or something like, no, I don't care. I don't care about this guy clearing his cases. I just want to see John Wick get his revenge. The reason this movie is perfect is it's so lean. That's what's aged the best is it's like kind of stripped down nature. So I'm so glad they didn't also add like a law enforcement like grizzled detective trying to figure this all out.

You know, as you were saying that, I was going to make believe there was two deleted scenes of Benjamin Brat as the detective Chase's just to see what She's reaction was. I completely agree. Yeah, but Benjamin Brat was the detective. It was like, oh, hold on a second. Some more what's age the best. I like movies that show a much later scene first, and then we have to circle back.

So that scenes planted, and now we're kind of going backwards, even though we're not saying we're going backwards, and then we end up where we kind of started. Hard thing to pull off. I also like getting punched in the stomach and immediately puking. Yeah.

Chapin to Theon Lovejoy. You know that's a good bodyblower. You're just spitting up bile and mucus. Winston calling him Jonathan. Great point. I might start doing that with UCR. Just start calling you Christopher every once in a while. Just as like gives you a little weightiness, some history in our relationship.

For years, I have called Sean Fantasy, Seanathan. Is it because of Wic? Because of this thing. Yes, I just say that's Jonathan every time. That's good. like that. The, the,

the trope, which is just so funny when this happens that it's in so many action movies of the hot bartender with the history of the lead character.

Jonathan, how long's it been? And just like, with the fuck me eyes going, it's like, oh, it's like the

Top Gun Maverick. He just waltzes into that thing. It's like, oh, of course Jennifer Conley and him have a history. But they,

that is a trope that is in a lot of these action movies. That's such a good call. That scene kind of sticks out. like a sore thaw.

She's just like, hey, John. And it's just, hey, everybody else was like, I'm sorry about your wife. And she's like, hey, your wife's dead, right? Yeah, you're single now, right? You had the memorial, right? How about Dean Winters from Oz? Yeah.

As the eventually banged up conciliary, but then now does all these, what is it, Geico? He does all the Geico commercials. I think it's Allstate, yeah. Allstate, where he's just getting the shit kicked out of him. And it's basically like he trained. for that with this John Wick thing.

So, Wick has a lot of tricks in this for what stage is the best, wanting to mention how he turns his watch. Yeah. When he has a fight, it's just subtle shit, but that's the one, I think my favorite one. It's like, I don't want to hurt the head of my watch. So I'm going to turn it inside on my wrist. So when I punch, nothing happens to the watch. Apparently, soldiers do that to avoid reflections when they have a rifle.

Theo Theo lovejoy as Vigo's loser's son What a run for him Yeah, he's really good He's so unlikable I don't even know what his name is in real life I just say yeah He's Alfie Allen

It's almost you can't Like I wouldn't be able to see him In a rom-com or anything at this point Because you just can't unsee Theo Lovejoy Theon Lovejoy in this character Would you have to REOC? Theo Lovejoy played at NC State

Great Joy Theon of the Sacramento Kings What do I have for that? I love Vigo's speech to John. I think it's kind of awesome. It's a little over the top, but when he's like, we have to pay for,

like, we get rewards for our misdeeds and that's what's brought you to me and about how like John is like this infection and like they're never going to get out of this cycle. Yeah. I laughed so much on this last one when he gives that speech and he somehow turns John's wife dying

into a thing about him. Yeah. It was like, It was like in Breaking Bad when Walter White was talking with Jesse. And he's like, it's all about me. This is all about like he was doing that. What do we know about that Michael Neckwith, CR, who plays Vigo? He's just one of those guys, right?

Yeah, and he's like a really good character actor. I mean, like he's like McShane and Reddick. And I think he's done a bunch of stuff in Europe. I can't remember seeing him in other action movies. I feel like I've seen him, but I only really know him from this. All right. new category the fortune three clap award for most giffable moment would you go john wick that shot of him just holding the dead dog what's the best give from this movie i think it's uh i'm thinking i'm back

i see that one a lot and then and then the other one is when he's getting his gun ready to go out to kill everybody it's like another one you you see a lot of yeah that are hammering the concrete yeah the jack hammering the concrete's good too. Great shot order award. Most cinematic shot. Would you have, CR? Love the red lights flashing when the cops pull up to his house and like the red is pulsing into the house after he's just killed everybody. It's just awesome. I mean, you could pick any frame from the from the Red Circle club fight and especially on the dance floor, but I always like that. I like the slow mo of when he's about to kill Theon Lovejoy when it's like a shot from

the ground up and he's just slow mo like he's like an assassin. in which he is. Would you have? I'm so happy that we have just taken to calling him love joy instead of gray joy. Gray joy is in the game of Thrones, but love joy is just funny. I thought it was love joy. I tried to tell him it was Gray Joy.

Did you text him? Can we change it to Lovejoy? No, we're keeping it. Yeah, we're keeping Lovejoy. No, I want to keep Lovejoy. My favorite shot in this is when they put the bag over John Wick's head, and then they do a wide shot from the back of the whatever the empty facility is that they're in the empty warehouse.

And John Wick is an inch tall on the screen. And they're just around them and it's all this empty space. And you're like, how is he ever going to get out of here? Yeah. Yeah. filmmaking. I'm fucking dying. I'm dying at Lovejoy, man.

Lovejoy's kid. Why didn't you guys tell me? I shouldn't know it's all the whole fun. Because now I just keep thinking it sounds like somebody who would be hanging out with Reggie Hammond. It's just so awesome. I really like to. the cemetery shot of Wic and Defoe in the beginning, the black and white with the way they're closed. It just looks cool. Okay. Dennett thieves, Benihana Award, scene, selling locations, got to be

the nightclub. It's continental. Isn't the continental? The nightclub's pretty amazing. I don't know. It's got all the, it's got like a Russian bathhouse in the back. It's got like cool balconies. I think that, I think that would go continental. Yeah. I mean, that's things, the idea of that that location spawned a whole show and everything. And it's become like a major part of the way. But that's the most impactful location. I'm talking about scene stealing. Oh, you've never made that distinction before.

Good battle. All right. We can have both. Big Cohoon Burger Award, best use of food and drink. The cereal for Wick and the dog. Yeah. A tough, tough beat for people who love dogs.

Oh, my God. Don't give a puppy cereal. That's going to be Diarrhea Central. But a key thing. The Vincent Chase Award for Art. sure this character was actually good at his job. Can we talk about Vigo's conciliary, Dean Winters? Who doesn't speak Russian? Yeah. English Vigo. First of all English. Why isn't he Russian? Second, he's given two jobs. Can you send some guys to kill John Wick at his house?

Failure. Hey, the nightclub. Can you protect my son? Yeah, I'll put my best guys in that. All of them die and then eventually just everybody dies. And I feel like in the press, he didn't get enough press about this. At the end of the movie, he doesn't even have a gun. You're still being hunted by John Wick. You just killed his best friend. You don't have a gun? Why is your gun?

Yeah, it's like he was coming back from a fantasy draft and didn't realize like that there was like violence and murder in the air. I can't believe I took Marvin Harrison in the first round. Oh, shit. It's John Wick. It's John Wick. one pitch. The Brandy Booth Award best performance by a pet, the Beagle.

Yeah. They just really had something special there. It's a Beagle in the first scene and then what's he get? A pit bull at the end? A pit bull at the end. I like the Beagle a little more. Okay. The Butch's Girlfriend Award for the weak link of the film.

So they capture John Wick and they just don't kill him immediately. This is Bobby, Bobby Yeager. Like, first of all, they have guns drawn on him after he's killed, I don't know, 50, 60 of their people. Just they can take him down and then with a headshot. They don't. They decide to bring him to a remote location. It's literally like the Austin Power sketch of, uh, why didn't you just kill? Like Dr. Reble said, why don't you just kill him?

He's right there. Just kill him. Scott, shut up. I don't understand it. I, every time I watch this movie, it's the flaw that jumps out of me. So that would be my pick. What do you have, Shea? Let me throw an idea out there.

Okay. Do you think Vigo, in the back of his mind, maybe even towards the middle of his mind was like, maybe I can get him back on my team. And if I can. Oh, like a Pat Riley-Lebron thing? Yeah. Wouldn't it be great to have a pissed off Baba Yeager working for me? You know, like if I could just like smooth this over with him and Yosef, like we can really make some interesting things.

What do you think of that theory, Shea? I like, I do like that theory because. he specifically says that impossible task that John Wick did built the foundation for what we are today. And John Wick just basically destroyed everything they were today. So we need him again. He has to build it up again. To build it back up. Let me try to, yeah, maybe it's that.

That's a good one. I like it, Chris. I like it, Chris. What's your weak link, Shay? Do you have one? No, because I was considering the same thing of Vigo just not killing him. When you have the chance, just kill him. Just kill him.

He's knocked out. He's knocked unconscious twice in the movie. Neither time did they kill him, right? But then this goes back to him somehow making John Wick's wife's death about him. Like he needs to give that speech and he needs to turn his back on him and he needs to walk away. It's all ego for him. There's no way he wasn't going to do that. He couldn't just walk up and shoot him.

He needed to say some stuff to John. And because as soon as John starts talking and explaining why he's doing everything he's doing, Vigo just fucking rolls his eyes. He's like, ugh, God. Yeah, you're a dog. You're a dog. Yeah. Yeah. C.R.

What's John Wick's CTE situation at this point after the four movies? Not to mention whatever else happened on. I don't think he's going to be playing. We have two knocked out concussions like Antonio Brown versus the Raven style, knocked out twice, just in this movie. And then I think we have another one in Wick two. Probably like one per movie. Also, a lot of car accidents, a lot of like just like like, like seven cars.

the falling down 45 flights of stairs in part four, it's like, that's pretty bad. He's going to have Will Smith being like, tell the truth. Tell the truth. What's age the worst? Mention feeding cereal to the dog. So this is a tidbit that was in multiple things I read, so I feel like it's true. Bridget Moynihan when they talked to her into playing John Wicks Wave.

She only wanted to read her scenes in the script, so she didn't form any. any other opinions on John Wick's character? It's like, settle down, Meryl Streep. You're in this for 40 seconds? You don't read the script? I don't know if these flashbacks, I want to make sure I play them correctly. I just said that was so weird.

John Wick never gets blood on him with all the murders he commits. You just feel like there's got to be blood splattering all over the place. He's got blood all over his shirt. I think he would be covered in blood after the nightclub. Yes, that's why he's wearing a black suit, right? Like, I mean, I understand what you're saying. He would definitely be drenched in arterial spray, but.

So wardrobe tip from CR, black suit covers up gallons of blood. Like, he's stabbing people in the neck. Like, you stab somebody in the neck. Like, they're going to spout blood back at you. I feel like every part of his body would be covered in blood. I don't know. I had that one. And then I don't, I don't, not positive.

I like the We're Killing Strangers song, just as a song. So this is my what's age the worst, Bill, is the multiple uses of Marilyn Manson throughout this movie. And I would like to propose a new rule. You know, we've talked about AI on this pot already. People go back with their 4K remasters, taking out grain and shadows from their movie. I'm looking at you, James Cameron. Why do we never talk about going back and redoing music and movies?

Yeah, because they do it when, like, sometimes streamers for TV shows. shows when they lose the licenses. Yeah, but like John Wick is now a billion dollar franchise. Can they not go back and put like a sick Chemical Brothers song or something over this? You're like, what can't, we could, we could come up with something better than killing strangers, which is so on the nose. And they do twice with the lyrics. Yeah, they run it back too.

And I don't even. Over the Willem Defoe killing. And it's just like, dude, just have like, let's go, let's go get these guys like a little bit of a budget and have like Jeff Barrow. or somebody go do cool music for this. As opposed to the best movie of the 21st century Miami Vice, all the musical choices in that movie, I would not fucking touch. Literally would not touch.

But yeah, I would have grabbed one of the ones. Oh, my God. Amazing stuff. Has it aged a day. Shay, any other what's age the worst for you? No, I don't know if this, maybe I should have mentioned this at what age is the best because as I was about to say it as what age is the worst,

I realize I really love it when they do it in a movie. I love when a bad guy grabs a person to be their human shield when they're trying to get away. Theon Lovejoy does it when he's trying to get out of the pool. He just grabs this woman as John Wake is pointing his gun at him. I like when a bad guy grabs somebody for a human shield. That's just such a classic Lovejoy move to do that. Fucking Lovejoy.

What's the best human shield moment of all times? Seismore and Heat? No. It's got to be Seismore, right? Wesley Snipes picking up the little girl in New Jack City. Oh, yeah. That's pretty. I was thinking Seismore just because it has the slowmo of him turning around thinking he got

away and Pacino just has him lined up. I really love when the day the action wasn't the juice anymore. Yeah, I love when the guy, the hero, nails the dude using the human shield at like an impossible. but that's like in the untouchables with Andy Garcia like tosses him the gun and he's lying on the ground. Robocop. When he shoots through the dress

and hits the guy in the dick because he's holding the woman in front of him but he's just crazy. 48 hours has it too. That's the ending. Yeah. With Jack Cates. You're done. History.

They always use little kids for the shields because they're easier to pick up. Oh, he does that in lethal weapon too. That's the reverse of it when Riggs is like, somebody shoot this asshole, somebody shoot this motherfucker who's got him,

the guy who has him hostage. Right. The Ruffalo-Hanna-Rubeneck Partridge overacting a word. They knew and they let it happen. Don't you call me, lady, I come in here,

I give these things to you. Give it all you got. Give it all you got. I treated you like a son. You fucking stand me in the heart. Fuck you. You could put, I'm thinking,

care and Keanu, but I really like him in that scene, and I don't want to put him in this category. So I'm going to go with... People misunderstand Rubeneck. Just because you're the Rubeneck doesn't mean you're also the action is the juice. This isn't bad acting. It's about dialing it up. He dials it up. So I think I'm thinking I'm back can both be the Rubeneck, but it can also be what's age

of the best. It could also be the best quote of the movie. It's sick. I would rather go with Vigo going, priceless, priceless! Like he just said, that's the one time he kind of loses it and starts yelling. Was there a better title for this movie? So interestingly enough, this movie was called Scorn for basically the entire run of the

filming and then they decided to audible and change. Thank God. John Wick's better. Scorn's not a bad title for a movie, though. I just think Scorn 2, Scorn 3 would not aware. worked as well and that John Wyrick. Yeah. That's where it falls apart.

Also, if your name's John Wick, that could probably be the title. Yeah. You know, it's not like your name is like Bob Johnson. Like John Wick, pretty cool name. Can you dig it a word for most memorable quote? So you would do, I'm thinking, I'm thinking I'm back. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

You wouldn't go, there's no rhyme or reason to this life. It's days like today, scattered among the rest. John Wick gets deep. good. That's really good. That's really good. John Week fucking touches your soul. Shay, did you prepare a CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford Hottest Take Award? Or do you want us to carry you? I don't know that this is exactly that. But I do feel like I wish that John Ligizamo was in this movie for 90 minutes more. Because he is so good. He's just perfect. He drops in, does his John Liguizamo thing.

The part where the part where the guy's telling him that he killed his dog and John Wic, or excuse me, and John Liguizamo kind of laughs about it. The owner of the car, did you kill him or what? No. You sure it's all fucked up his dog. He fucked up his dog. That's what you did. You fucked up his dog. It's crazy shit, man.

Oh, look at you. Brilliant acting by John Liguizamo. one of my favorite actors of all time. I think every movie he should be in there for at least 90 minutes. Every movie you can think of put him in it. It's better. Does an awesome job. I don't want to go on too big of a tangent, but he's one of those guys.

We think about this, some athletes too, where you're just like, was that guy used correctly? Was that guy in the right team? Did that guy's career play out the way it should have played out? I feel like with him, I don't know why he wasn't used like he was in this movie in more impactful ways. You think about the times he was used correct. Like in Boslerman, Romeo and Juliet. And you're like, holy shit. That's magic.

Magic. He pops up again in the rest of the movies or John Wick too. He has like one little part where he shows up to pick up John Wick's car to fix it. Totally destroyed car. And he's like, oh, you got a crack on your windshield. Just a little joke. And you're like, I love this guy so much. It would have been cool if he had a little bit more of a like Al from Die Hard role

where like they could talk on the phone a couple of times throughout the movie. You know? Yeah, I like that. I like that. I like that. Good role for you too, CR. Thanks. Yeah, from Die Hard Role.

People just call CR. My hottest take is Vigo says a lot of us are rewarded for our misdeeds, which is why God took your wife and unleashed you and me. This life follows you.

We are cursed, you and I. It sounds like bullshit, but if you actually think about it, like Vigo, he's 100% right. He's dialed in. Like, hey, John Wick, maybe don't kill 1,500 people. And maybe your wife would, maybe the karma of that wouldn't have ended up with your wife, you know, dying.

I don't know. Vigo brought me to some places as I was thinking about. I was like, you know what Vigo? I know he's full of shit. But it's a pretty solid point, man. God's always watching and karma exists. Maybe that's what happened to your wife and puppy, John Wick. My hottest take is similar to yours.

It's about John Wick's massive overreaction to, A dog dying, frankly, considering the amount of bloodies. And I would also go as far to say is that I think it's a massive deflection from his own boredom at his suburban life. And I think that when we see him and he's doing donuts on a private runway somewhere and it's like, yeah, you know what, man, you didn't really have a lot going on. Anyway, it's been three days. He's been three days since his wife died. Well, I mean, like, what's going on? John Wick doing with Helen? What do we like what do we like what's like what is he doing?

Is he hanging out? What does she do? I don't even know what she does. Is she a doctor or something? I have a lot of questions about this later. Okay. I'm just saying like John Wick may have had a big void in his soul that I think he was trying to fill. And it this conveniently came along with a massive overreaction to a pet diet. Wonderful take. Great take. That was a long way of CR saying, I'm not a dog guy. Yeah, for real. Casting what ifs. You wouldn't have seen him do if he had a cat. That's all I'm saying. Ian McShane replaced Jason Isaacs as Winston.

That's the only casting win if I could find. Best that guy award. We have a lot of people who are kind of became the people. Like Lance Reddick became Lance Reddick. He used to be that guy. But then Clark Peters, same thing. Tyra from Friday Lights. I know her name's Adrian Pallickey.

Dean Winters. I know his name's Dean Winters. It really comes down to Theon Lovejoy against Luther from 48 hours. That's David Patrick Kelly, man. He's also the bad guy in Warriors. Is he David Patrick Kelly or is he Luther from 48 hours? No, I think he's that guy. The cleaner is that guy. I was so happy to see him in here. I think that's a winner. The only other thing I was going to say is that the actor who plays Victor, who's boy, is also...

He's one of those guys. He's in billions. Yeah, he's one of the DAs of billions. He's Conardy. Yeah. Oh, wow, that's a good one. Toby Leonard Moore. He might be the winner, actually.

If you want to go with something a little bit more recent. We're going to take one more break and then come back with the Dion Waiters Award. Dion Waiters. I don't think Tyra from Friday Night Lights is eligible for this. I think she's in the movie just a whiff too much. For me, it's like Wisamo. You could talk me in Jimmy the cop, but Leguizamo just coming in hot, filming all the scenes in one day. Leaving us wanting more.

I don't know how he's at the winner. Close the pulse. Can I tell you a very quick little story? John Liguizamo came to San Antonio as part of like whatever's most recent comedy tour was Latin history for morons. And I'd never seen him in person. I told Laramie, that's what I want for like my birthday slash Christmas present. So we got front row seats to see John Ligu Zama. in person.

And we're sitting there, and he's up there performing. And he does a thing where he like, you know, a comedian will pick somebody in a crowd and then like start making jokes or whatever. And he picked me like out of, there's 800 people in there or whatever. And he just so happened to zero in on me. And like three different times he made a joke about, he like asked me to solve some math question really quick. And I was so flustered. I was like, I have no idea. I'm sorry.

I can't even speak English right now. And he just kept making jokes about it. and I don't know, I just want to mention that. That was your brush with John Luguizamo Greatness? That was my brush. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's unbelievable. I was so happy. I was so happy that it happened.

Oh, that's awesome. Recasting Couch, Director, or City, I wouldn't touch anything in this movie. No. Nope. Who do you want for the director's commentary? Would it be Tony Romo, Chris Collinsworth, or another sports announcer?

What do you have, CR? Oh, Mike, he's got something. buried down there, but he's going to take a sledgehammer and get it out because the past isn't just the past. I have a... We should introduce Belichick on Manningcast in this category. I have that right now. I have Belichick doing the nightclub scene on the Manningcast. John's... Yeah, he's just killing a lot of people right now. It's good technique.

I think this is, you know, I think people know John Wicks really good at this. I mean, this is why it's not a surprise. He's just doing headshots, and the headshots are just so important. Head shots, headshots, generally speaking, lethal. Those are lethal. A lot of people don't realize headshots, the guy dies right away. Oh, that's great. Let's give you eight pods.

The headshots so important. Half-ass internet research. Kianu. Four months of training, several hours per day in a gym, strict diet, stretches, choreography, trained in judo, Japanese jihitsu, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and Arnis, Arnese, I don't even know what that is. Tactical gun training with the L.A. Swat, Navy Seals,

learned stunt driving skills, learned how to drift the car while aiming a gun. That's sick. That last one is awesome. Adrian Pallickey trained in judo and jiu-jitsu for a few months, spent two weeks learning our fight scene. So there you go. I had a couple of pieces of research for you, Bill.

What do you got? One is Alfie Allen went to Russian bathhouses to research Yosef, and I really would love to have seen that conversation between Alfie and the director and the producer. Is they're like, God, we're trying to organize the shoot for this nightclub scene. And he's like, guys, just wanted to run this by. I think I'm going to spend a lot of time in some bad houses to kind of get in characters. Like, whatever you need love joy.

Also, the Red Circle, the nightclub is named after one of my favorite movies, which is La CERCLA Roche, which is this Jean-Pierre Melville crime film from France. Oh, I love when you get RCCR. John's car was a 1969 boss 429 Mustang, only 1,300. 59 made and they didn't have enough money to buy five of the cars and destroy them. So they had little fake substitute cars, which is a recurring theme of things that are on their way up when you're cutting corners. And then they make the sequel and they're like, we're getting five of those fucking cars and we're destroying all of them.

They filmed the fight scene with John and Vigo over five nights at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. And it was so cold that at one time they had to stop. using artificial rain because they didn't want somebody at hypothermia because fucking Keanu wouldn't wear a wetsuit. And they were like, just wear a wetsuit, Keanu. It's like, I can't. I can't wear the wetsuit. And they were worried he was going to like catch mononucosis or something.

Stahowski and Leach, the Matrix stunt coordinators. They directed this together and the DGA wouldn't co-credit them. So one became the director, the other became the producer. apparently Michael Nyquist, Nyquist. Nikevist? Is it a Nikevist? Yeah. He cut his head so badly that he needed 80 stitches in one of the fight scenes and almost lost an ear.

That sounded exciting. And then what do you think total number of John Witt kills is Shea? 67. I'm going to go 112. Shea wins. 84. Boom. She's closer to the pin.

Apex Mountain. What's Keanu? Matrix. Yes. Yeah, it's got to be Matrix. Has to be, right? Yeah. Think about how many things have come out of the Matrix.

Imagine doing John Wick and having that not be your Apex Mountain, but apparently we're here. Revenge movies? No. I don't think so. I don't think so.

Fake hotel universe is 100%. Yeah, 100%. What do you think the awards point system is for the Continental? You think they have an app? Do you think you can get like sapphire tier there and just be like, oh, wow. Well, you've crossed 10,000 coins, Mr. Wick. I got a fortnight for free.

Here's a warm cookie. Yeah. I didn't kill anyone in my last 50 stays. They gave me a fourth night. Adrian Policki. I think Tyra. I feel like season one, season two, Friday Night's has to be. Yeah.

Even being in the crazy Landry murder plot, probably probably was more. Apexie. She caught a body. The one extra headshot shot, this is Apex Mountain for me. I really feel like Wic took, it's been in pieces of different movies and Wicks like we're taking this and making this our thing. Russian boogeymen, 100%. Russian bad guy mafia characters.

This is tough because Eastern Promises is getting in the way here. Yeah, I'm going to go to Eastern Promises. I like, I like Vigo Mortensen. getting a little loose. How about criminal NEPO babies? Lovejoy. Oh, I like that. I like that.

Defoe, no. Robbery fires where you rob something and then just set it on fire overtaking it? I feel like I've seen that movies before, but maybe not. Joker did that, right, in Dark Night. A few people have done that one.

How about Vigo? Just the name Vigo was the same Pek's memo. I think Vigo Morgensen gets that, yeah. Just want to talk it out. How about burying and then digging up your former career underneath concrete? No question, yes. John Wick movies. Yes.

Depends on your favorite John Wick movie. I'm going to think that's the best. I like three. I like three. 21st Century Action Movies? I'm going to say it revitalized the genre in some ways in America. I don't know if I'm accurate on that. I'm going to say no only because it didn't do well in the movies. But it like it was actually one of those last movies, not last movies, but it was one of those

movies that you knew they were going to make a sequel because like everybody was still talking about it. Like it felt like they were just scratching the surface of the world rather than like, oh, you can't top that, right? I'm not saying this just because Shay's here. But I think if you're comparing Fast 4 to Wick 1, Fast 4 left, I left the theater and I'm like, there's going to be six more of those. Yeah.

It was just so clear, they had stumbled on the right recipe and it was still going, WIC, you know, whether they knew they were going to make a sequel or not, who knows. It seems like they were barely trying to get the movie done. But fast for, I was like, we're off now. The family is together. What's next? When's the next one coming out?

We now understand the motivations. Oh, new category for you, Shea, since the last time you heard. Cruz or Hanks? I like it. You had to cast John Wick. It's got to be Cruz. We saw it in collateral. He did it already.

It's 100% Cruz. I wish we could get Easy Cruz win. Wick and Vincent together, fighting in L.A. Awesome. Yeah. I wish we could have done that.

You know, John Wick's like a whiff on Vincent's corner. I think they noticed this. They borrowed from a lot of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. This would have been a great cruise part. I don't know if he ever would have done it.

Racehorse, rock band, wrestler, or fantasy team name. Something with the Continental, right? No, dude. Bobby Yaga? Oh, shit. Down the stretch comes Baba Yaga! It's the horse you send to kill the boogeyman! Yeah, that's a good call.

All right, pick a nits. I have a bunch. Shady. You can start. All right. Can we point out the lure of John Witt killing a guy with three guys with a pencil? A pencil is, it's pretty much a knife. Yeah.

You're like jamming it. You know what I mean? It's like you can kill him with a pillow. You kill them with a pencil. You just, we see him do it in two. He just jams it into their heads. All right, I get it. That one sticks out to me.

I think the main one, though, is it costs the same amount of hitman money to get a body cleaned up as it does to enter the hitman nightclub. It's one coin. Everything's one coin. Stay at the hotel, one coin. Clean up a body one coin. I know they do it for simplicity, but I'm not going to pay the same price

to get a body clean out of my house as they have to come into the club. I think, Shea, he even pays the valet at the end of the movie a gold coin. But maybe it's different denominations, same size. Like, maybe it's like British money.

You know, like... So you would have gone smaller, bigger. This is... I've always made this case for Olympic gold medals that I think, like, the basketball team should have, like, a bigger one or like you win the 100-yard dash versus, like,

you're in, like, the first of, like, fucking swimming relay in the backstroke. We know they have different coins because they introduced them. Why should Tyree's Halliburton get a bigger medal than the guy who does backstroke? Listen, he had to win six games, you know, it's an important sport. I don't know. So like the valet would get a smaller gold coin? Well, here's what I'm saying.

They introduce bigger coins later on in the move. The adjudicator has a totally different coin, much bigger. lack when she slides it across the table or when they slide it across the table, excuse me. I think it's the same denomination for each one is what it looks like. You know, we've done a lot of these movies. And my guess is they were like, hey, we should have them give gold coins to each other. And somebody was like, cool. And that was like all the thought they put into it, not knowing that we'd be analyzing this

movie for the next 10 years. Like, the fuck's up with these gold coins. C.R. What do you have? As a nitpick, I find that the Vigo fight at the end of the movie does not reach the heights of the church escape or the nightclub. This is a common problem with action movies where the villains's older. And it's also like John Wick kind of like throws that fight. I'm like, you're telling me John Wick couldn't fuck Vigo up like instantaneously? Or I guess maybe you could make.

number one nitpick. You can make, it's the accumulation of his injuries maybe over the course of the movie. But I just feel like there's no way Vigo is like putting him down once. Yeah, it's a little like the end of Gladiator where that fights closer because he's been stabbed in the chest and drugged. Yeah. In this case, maybe you have to think of it that way with John Wick. He's been knocked out twice.

He fell 20 feet. He's been stabbed and shot and punched. So maybe his body is. four car crashes. Yeah. I thought on that note, I thought Wick would be way more banged up

after the Theon Lovejoy Home Invasion when they knock him out. He gets punched in the face like five times. He's got, yeah, it's just no swelling at all, and he's just fine. Along those same lines, I always get annoyed

when in the first time he has a shot at Theon, he's in the bath, and he's got a clear shot, and he doesn't take it. And you're like, oh, that's because he's saving a special death for this guy. And then at the end of the movie, he just, like, ices him. And I'm like, aren't you going to crucify this guy?

Like, aren't you going to, like, skin him alive? Like, what are we doing here, man? It's the only time he doesn't take the shot right when he has it. It's weird. Yeah, I agree with you, though. It feels like he's like, now I got to save a better death for this guy. This could go back to your theory, Chris, of he was just bored at home. Yeah.

He's like, I don't want to do this yet. I'm going to wait. John Creasy would have put an explosive up his rectum. You know what I mean? Like, we need somebody who's an artist. Yeah. Fair point. I feel like during the nightclub after maybe somewhere between the 8th and 25th,

John Wickmurter, maybe more people leaving the nightclub running as fast as they can. I don't know. I don't know how loud it is, but maybe after the 12th person falls over the balcony and they'll be like, you know what, let's, I think there's another club down the street. Have you noticed the guy next to me is bleeding out? This is a great song. Look, we mentioned this earlier, but Lovejoy not knowing who Wick is when Wick isn't that old.

I hate it. Just a flaw. Like, nobody is that stupid. And it seemed like Victor does kind of know and knows he shouldn't be fucking with him at the gas station. But then when Wick confronts Victor at the sink in the bathhouse, Victor's like, fuck you motherfucker. It's like, why don't you beg for your life?

You're going to give up your boy anyway. Right. So in real life, Baba Yega is an old witch that lives in a hut on chicken feet and flies around in mortar with a giant pestle, apparently, according to Russian lore.

In real life? Yeah. Or in the real life, the real life myth of that is that. It's just an old Russian witch, female witch. So kind of a strange nickname for John Wick. Do you think that's the witch

that's been haunting the top floor of your house for a while? It's a good question. I got to figure that out. Now you're in my head, C.R. Could I add a picking net? Yeah.

I thought you guys were going to mention this. John Wick's house. A lot of windows in the house of an assassin. It's a damn greenhouse. You'd think maybe a guy who kills people all the time would have maybe not windows surrounding his entire place. Well, furthermore, like, to what extent is he out? Like, how long has he been out for?

Right? I assume they were bulletproof windows. When I watch John Wick, I'm really trying to figure out where he lives because at one point when he has no car, he takes the bus to go see Leguizama. His bedroom every morning when he wakes up, there's just like floor to ceiling windows staring at his bed and he's an assassin who's retired. I don't know. Maybe I would sleep in a room with a few less windows.

You don't think it was just boltproof glass though? I don't know. I guess not if everybody just broke in. People threw glass in his house. Also, wouldn't he have better security? Like two guys just waltz in, they get in there. My last one is just he never gets his car back. It always bothered me.

I felt like that would have been a better ending. He goes to the Leguizamo Chop Shop. Doesn't that happen in the second movie, though? Yeah, but I just, in the first movie, I would like. Yeah, but that's like the first scene at the second movie, right? He goes to get his car back from... Yeah. Right.

But I didn't know there was going to be a second movie than such on my point. Oh, so you're like, you're method potting. Like as if you don't, yeah. Sequel, prequel, prestige TV, all black cast are untouchable. Can I talk you guys into a Miss Perkins prequel? Sure. I mean, that's essentially what the ballerina is going to be the new one.

It's like an extension of it. I've been, I'm saying in 2015, I think we could have gotten that one going concurrently with, as we're making John Wick 2. We're also doing that on HBO or something. I also would have really. more backstory in Miss Perkins. A Noah Baumback directed prequel of Helen and John's married life. I'm just like, so, like, what were you doing in the late 90s?

It's just like, well, not much. That's not talking about it. How come you could talk so many languages? Yeah. You know, big student in college. You really like Chikovsky. Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Treau, Sam Jackson, J.T. Walsh, Byron Mayo, Harling Mays, Evil Laughing, Ramon, Raymond, or Philip Baker Hall, CR.

God damn, John. I didn't know I was dealing with Super Baba Yaga. You got me crying over Lachlan's song in the Piedad. You better revenge that little guy before you die because you're going to hell a long fucking time, big boy. Thank you. I was always going to be that one. I had to do it for Shay.

Wayne's back. We haven't had Chey on since we had an evil laughing Ramon Raymond to the pod for Andy Garcia's character. No one selected Roman Raymond ever. What do you think, John Wick? We're going to kill some people. Just one Oscar who gets it. It's got to be the stunts, right?

The stunts for sure. Yeah, okay. All right, probably unanswerable questions. Why is John Wick a 6 a.m. guy? You're a retired hitman. What are you waking up at 6 a.m. and making coffee for. He's probably got to get up to pee anyway.

He's like, I got to watch Get Up with Greenie. I think Marcus Spirce is going to be on. My dad has been retired for like, well, three years now, and he gets up at fucking 4.30 in the morning still. Like, he's driving the bus. He just gets up. My dad does. My dad gets up really tough.

Wick being like, I think Orlovsky's breaking down Anthony Richardson today. Heard Bina Kimes is coming on later. Could a boogie hitman? Boogieman, hitman, really find true love. Because that's probably the biggest leap of faith of this movie, right? This guy is the boogeyman sent to kill the other boogeyman. He's the most feared person in the Russian mafia. And he's just like, hey, you want to pick apples this weekend?

I do want to know where they met. Want to go see my on in upstate New York? Yeah. Like what kind of domesticated John Wick life was happening here? Yeah. All right, Shay, this is for you. Evil foreign mobster rankings. and I'll give you Chechnyne,

Bulgarian, Russian, Italian, or other? Who's number one? Oh, geez. It feels like Italian is the one we've seen the most. But I think the...

I'm going to introduce one. I'm the one I was always the most afraid of. We talked about it earlier. The Albanians and taken. Albania is another one. I don't want to mess with the Albanians. I'm out. I'm out on the Albanians. Who's in the Equalizer? Which

country is in that one? Is that Bulgarian or Russian? I think it's Russian in the first one. I think Albanians. So I thought Bulgarians was taken, but Shea's right. It's Albanians, number one. For some reason, I know the least about that country. It's Russian and the Equalizer, by the way. Yeah, Russians.

Albanians, scary. The Equalizer does such a good job, spreading the wealth, man. Because it's like the Russians, then it's the X-CIA guys, and then it's the Italian mafia. If Yolkic's brothers were in one of these movies, like WIC-5, I'd still feel like we need those guys somewhere in there. I'm the most afraid of the Chechnans because in UFC, those guys, anytime they're in a fight, you're like, oh, this guy's could be a fucking badass. This is an unanswerable question, a little bit of a nitpick.

but you mentioned Yokic's brothers, so it came to mind. If we were doing a ringer top 100 of all of Vigo's henchmen, would you be a little disappointed by the lack of separation between like, you know, it's basically Kirol and then it's everybody else. And it would be really hard to be like... The one guy that puts up the big fight with Wick. Yeah, so I think in the future movies, they do a much better job distinguishing his... who he's fighting against his companions.

Yeah. Well, we went over it earlier. They had 10 stunt people that they had to just keep reusing over and over again. Best double feature choice, John Wick 2. I have a better tomorrow. Andy and Reds-Wat-N-A award for what happened next day. It was John Wick 2. What piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie, Shea?

I want a gold coin. I want to hold one in my hand. I'm sure they put those in movie action houses. I'm sure they're out. I'm sure, like, you could buy the movie. I want a real one. I want a real one. I want the sled chamber.

I would like to... What's that in your office? That's the fucking sled chamber. John Wick used to reclaim his Bobby Hager life. I would like to have the video he keeps watching of Helen. And then I would like to watch it... I would like to just like randomly watch it at like work meetings, have to start playing during the watch.

Oh, sorry. I was just watching a very meaningful video. Well, now when you watch it, you could think about how Bridget Moynihan, she's so good in that because she didn't know what was going to happen in the rest of the movie. It's an incredible method acting from her. The Coach Finstock Award, Best Life Lesson, don't fuck with another man's dog, car, or both. That's come up before. I would say if you're a Russian mob boss, just let your kids know about the Baba Yega. Just be like, he might run into a guy one day and, you know, just make sure it's not just dude. Yeah, at dinner one night, maybe second course that story comes up.

Send it on the group chat. Just be like, here's John Wick. Just make sure you never fuck with this guy. And who won the movie was obviously Keanu Reeves. All right, producer Craig is here. Has that been a little bit of a rough stretch with the movies lately for producer Craig. But let's see what you thought of John Wayne. Come on, Craig.

Come on, Craig. I like tonight shift. The purple rain was not kind. That was the only, yeah, that was the only miss for me. That was tough. We've recovered. What did you think of John Wick? Don't worry.

John Wick, I think it's my favorite action movie franchise of all time. Hell yeah. Hell yeah, Craig. I don't know. For me, it's like it's the only action franchise that came out during my formative movie years. I was in college when the first one came out. And it's so original. And 10 years later, it's so rare that we get that the originality.

I'm still shocked this movie isn't based on like some comic. I can't believe this is original. And you can just feel it. It's so earnest. It's trying very hard. It's small. It doesn't know what to hit yet. And you can feel that.

It doesn't feel like Fast and Furious. The Fast and Furious stuff, which also was going on as I was growing up, I don't know. That feels like it comes from that old True Lies model. Careful, Craig. I like it. It just feels like this is art house action. You know what I mean? You want to trigger Babasheya up there.

Babashega. Babashiga. Yeah, I don't know. I think this is like the most efficient. world building at 100 minutes I've ever seen for an action movie. Like the writing, you actually have emotional buy-in.

The first 15 minutes of this movie are like, as sad as up to me. I'm like, this is fucking devastating. This man's wife dies. They kill his dog. He gets the shit kicked out of him. Like, this is the lowest of the low. And you just feel the stakes,

which is something you don't, I don't know, you don't usually feel that emotional weight for action movies. You know, it does give me faith that somebody's going to be able to pull this off again. Right? Fast and furious. That universe gets created

2000. This is 2014. Matrix starts 1999. It's doable. I'm just wondering who the next one is. We've seen some people take runs at it and it just some of them didn't take. Also like there's the visual style of this movie is so like the way the way they just inject like neon lights, house music, rave vibe. I think that's the most 2014 part of it is the music. It's the music. Yeah. It's like the rave nightclub stuff. And they basically just run it back every movie. I think two and four also have just like super sick neon nightclub shootouts.

And it's the coolest action scenes ever, in my opinion. They're amazing. Shea, maybe this could be the next thing you write, where somebody kidnaps Victor Wembeyanama. And you as yourself have to get them back. Yeah, you go to the basement. You just start hitting the sled chamber to get your stuff. I got some bad news for Coach Pop.

We're not going to get Wimby back. If I'm in charge of getting them back, I'm not going to make it. He's gone. When they send those 12 guys to my house in the beginning, I'm immediately dead. Like, immediately. John, that John Wick is like seven minutes long. Also, my dad loves these movies as well.

And my dad was a cop and it was on the SWAT team. And he says that this is the most accurate gun handling he's seen in an action movie. Jesus. Like the way Rick operates his handgun, he's like, it's the most authentic I've seen. We should have mentioned that earlier. Yeah, because it does jump out. He's especially how he reloads and stuff. Yeah, he's like the way he handles it, he says it's perfect or close to perfect.

The one in the nightclub where he has to reload, he reloads and then hits the guy and it taps the guy is like, whoa. Well, that's it for John Wick. And by the way, we already did John Wick two. I don't know why we did John Wick two before John Wick one, but it was a thing that happened. I think we just got it. John Wick two had come out and I just think we had all been watching it for, I don't know, 18 months. And we just said, fuck it and just did John Wick too. So now if you want to hear John Wick too, that is in the rewatchables archives as well.

Shea Serrano, a true pleasure to do a podcast with you again. I was so happy to see you, buddy. I had a great time. CR, thanks as always. Produced by Craig Horaceck. Thank you as well. And you can watch us on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. See you next week on the rewatchables.