JOHN WICK (2014): Rules Explained & Stunts Breakdown | Deep Dive

darling look John Wick is shooting all these guys using proper gun technique and he always reloads then Heckler and code p30l every 15 shot look he has to reload right now right in the middle of getting that guy he reloads Isn't that cool Darla's not a big fan of this movie because you know the whole opening scene I don't let her watch that part but she knows what happens at the beginning of the movie I'm Eric Voss and this is the Deep dive let's Deep dive into 2014's John Wick the first film of the John Wick series starring Keanu Reeves directed by Chad stahelski written by Derek colstadt and stunts by stahlski and David Leach with John Wick chapter 4 coming let's analyze the details that make the first John Wick film work so well as expansive as the John Wick mythology gets in the sequels it's playful World building is really made possible by the first film's strict adherence to a set of rules it's a game that pays the price for its heightened Reality by minding its manners with details few other franchises care about so here they are the John Wick rules number one you may only kill people who are also part of the game in approved zones so no collateral damage to innocence or two NPCs number two respect for firearms must be observed number three all legal transactions must be made with approved currency in this case gold coins and number four don't make a mess which is kind of the catch-all rule of don't be a dick these are the rules followed by assassins in the world of the film and by the filmmakers in a certain respect and these rules allow everyone involved to go to some wild places so let's go back through this film scene by scene to see how all these rules apply and the best way to support the Deep dive channel is to grab some deep dive merch from nerdright.shop like one of these super warm cozy ephedrine hoodies the film opens in the final scene as John crashes vigo's SUV and bleeds from the fight the car radio announcer reports how the storm has passed seven inches of rain the night before stranding New Yorkers without power this is some thematic table setting for the storm we're about to flash back into and Exposition that establishes the first rule not Farm Killers must be sidelined everyday New Yorkers in this film are just not part of this underworld War John watched his video of his deceased wife Helen what are you doing John in Greek mythology and in history Helen of Troy was the woman so beautiful men went to war over her but in this film those were Wars of the past John already won those words and that's how he's able to get out so we flashed back to a few days earlier John going through his 6 a.m morning routine but something's missing he Pats his bedside as he wakes up Helen isn't there her Daisy decorated mug is beside his by the coffee while her Hospital bedside has an orchid hanging over her lowered by her pillows or daisies and of course Daisy's on her bracelet and a daisy on the card she later sends John when her casket is lowered Jon has an eight spoked umbrella but when he talks to Marcus it switches to a larger 16 spoked umbrella this isn't just a random dumb mistake there's some practical reason behind it when Keanu Reeves is shot from below he can have a smaller umbrella because he just need to see him from below and he could hold it over his head without getting rain on him but when he shot from the side and the scene with Willem Dafoe the actor has to tilt the umbrella back so that he could see his face and thus they need a wider canopy so that they can get clean audio without the actor and the microphone getting all wet John says he keeps asking why why her there's no Rhyme or Reason to this life Marcus implies that the outside world real life really has no rules to it fate is cruel that way only in the Underworld are there rules that you can live according to and one could argue those rules are the reason the underworld exists so that these violent players can live in a world that makes some sense Jon accidentally keeps the delivery person's pen showing how he instinctively keeps every writing Implement in case he needs a weapon Vigo later states that he once saw John killman with a pencil [Applause] and killing some guys with pencils is something John does in chapter two notice also that John waris's watch Facing the inside of his wrist whereas other times like when he drives he wears it facing out this is because when Jon is in fighting mode he faces it inward similarly to how soldiers will wear their watches so they can see the time while they're holding a rifle and to keep the watch face from accidentally reflecting light Helen has written that Jon needs something to love and the car doesn't count the dog Daisy and his car two things Joseph will later take from him keanu's emotion is raw here in 2001 his longtime girlfriend Jennifer Stein died in a car accident after giving birth to their stillborn child the year before years later in 2019 Keanu was asked about life after death what do you think happens when we die Keanu Reeves I know that the ones who love us will miss us the colored tones of this movie switch from warm and golden to show John's happy home life with Daisy and his past with Helen too cold and blue for his bitter vengeful life to Stark red and green for the Stop and Go regulated gameplay of the underworld then back to warm and golden in the final shot Jon doesn't have kibble for Daisy and when they go to get some at the gas station you can see not only dog food in the back seat but a ton of dog toys too now this is a new jersey and in Jersey gas stations are supposed to be full service you don't pump your own gas but again we do not have to look at this as a Gak because John Annie Joseph and his guys aren't part of the normal World they are creatures of the underworld who play by different rules and gas station attendants don't with them or even tell Yosef not to smoke at a gas station Joseph Alfie Allen Theon Greyjoy from Game of Thrones mistakes John's 1969 Mustang GT for a 1970 429 Boss Mustang how much she's not for sale yeah Joseph assumes everything has a price and tries to force Jon into a transaction remember even Financial transactions are regulated among these players yo says bodyguard Victor polzio away and tells John to have a good day Victor's actually played by Toby Leonard Moore kingpin's assistant Wesley from Daredevil Victor knows who John is and is more cautious about threatening him at first Jon pulls up the airport for some rage drifting the guard of the gate is reading this book shibumi it's a 1979 book in which the protagonist uses the art of the naked kill in which you use everyday items to kill people everyday items like uh being so I do appreciate this actually Keanu behind the wheel for a lot of this Keanu Reeves is a disciplined student of proper firearm usage martial arts and a variety of stunts and it shows later in the club balcony fight giannu was sick and throwing up between takes but he kept powering through this whole movie is a family reunion of Reeves co-stars and his stunt team from the Matrix films Chad stahelski was a stunt double in The Matrix trilogy David Leach Works stunts on the sequels Daniel Bernhardt who plays the security captain in Korea in this movie was one of the stunt actors and the agent that Morpheus fights atop the truck and the Matrix Reloaded the key maker for Matrix Reloaded Randall duck Kim plays the Continental doctor in this movie all of these guys reunited on a mission for this film this history between Reeves and his crew and their commitment to the taken for granted art of authentic film stuntwork exposes John Wick not merely as the story of an ex-assassin who avenges his dog but a root myth of a decent man restoring honor to the game the rules matter Joseph triggers this restoration by stealing Jon's car and killing Daisy in his is gonna break your heart trigger warning but when Daisy gets hurt she is several feet away from Jon but when Jon wakes up from the attack there is a trail of blood showing that Daisy limped over to him to cuddle with him in her dying moments Don't Tell Darla about that detail and after Barry and Daisy in the backyard he places her collar on his nightstand behind Helen's bracelet and we also see how these jerks left a baseball bat the one they used to kill Daisy in the windshield of the SUV the car that Helen drove John Leguizamo Aurelio punches Yosef and refuses to give him a new vin and papers to the car because he knows that Yosef violated the rules he attacks someone who wasn't in the game in that moment and stole from him out of bounds and that person just happened to be the Baba Yaga I love it from the moment Aurelio tells Vigo that Joseph crossed John Wick Vigo changes in this movie he is unable to enjoy his business victories because he knows his world will soon inevitably come crashing down because she stole John Wick's car sir and uh killed his dog oh I love it oh Yosef responds later is the same as his father's well John wasn't exactly the boogeyman he was the one you sent to kill the Pokemon um bigo pours his son to drink and cheers to Sam but he doesn't himself drink his vodka showing that he doesn't actually support the reason they're toasting as Vigo tells Jon's ghost story we see Jon clearing the concrete rubble from his basement floor literally digging up the grave of his past and the film unveils the gold coins both in John's case and in vigo's safe the fact that Jon buried these shows that they have no monetary exchange equivalent they are only useful for goods and services in the Assassin underworld a world that Jon never intended to go back to like tokens to a long abandoned arcade please let's not forget this is all a game a game that is currently broken and needs to be repaired when John showers we see on his back is tattooed Fortis Fortuna aduvat which is Latin for Fortune papers of old her favors of Brave for the strong it means kind of all the same thing and it's Vigo sings his baba Yaga lullaby we see he's been surrounding John's house but in reality Vigo is singing a lullaby for them they are the ones that are threat for John is actually coming for them the fight in John's home is awesome and it takes place in three acts each Act punctuate by John having to reload it's not the shooting that matters in this movie it is the reloading act one starts on the second floor and ends on the ground level where Jon promptly reloads because Jon never fires more shots and his firearm would have the capacity for rule number two proper respect for firearms is always shown in this movie it's also evident in the way Jon shoots his enemies he almost always shoots once or twice to the chest and then again to the head like notice after he shoots a guy who falls down the stairs he follows through with another shot to the head so act two of this fight goes down to the living room and when a wall separates Jon from another guy Jon and Ducks slow and shoots Upward at where the guy's head would be while the guy shoots directly across and where he thinks Jon's head would be and because Jon was ducky and he misses so Jon anticipated the headshot and then when Jon throws this guy through the glass door he reloads again and finishes him because he fired off nine shots between the reloads and the reloading is always always observed that brings us to act three of this fight in the kitchen here Jon's gun gets knocked out early on so he has to show his hand-to-hand combat skills it ends with a solid 45 second take in the hall way where Jon grapples with the knife and punches the butt of the handle into the guy's chest again and again until it pokes him enough until he dies and then one of my favorite moments in this movie Thomas Sadowski plays Jimmy the cop in one of the most important and hilarious moments from this film you uh working again you know I just sorting some stuff out I'll leave you be then now one of the hardest things to write in high concept films or small setting but high stakes conflicts is how do you keep the police and the press out of the story because whenever this outside world gets in the picture it's just kind of logically forced to become a standard procedural but this moment right here proves that the authorities have a kind of gentleman's agreement with the Assassin underworld they know it exists but they do not interfere so long as the players follow the rules and don't make a mess so to keep for making a mess Jon makes a call for a dinner reservation for 12 and counts out 12 coins for Charlie to clean up the 12 bodies one coin per body like game tokens per Life taken Charlie is played by David Patrick Kelly who had the famous line in the 1979 film The Warriors [Music] so when Vigo visits Marcus Marcus is making carrot juice carrots rich in vitamin A good for eyesight for a sharpshooter like Marcus Vigo offers markets a contract but notice how Marcus never says yes explicitly only consider it done a Sly way of saying this will be over soon for you Marcus the symbols his Weaponry set to Marilyn Manson's killing strangers we're killing strangers so we don't kill the ones that we love Marcus in this movie Snipes vigo's men so that he doesn't have to kill his friend John and we arrive at the Continental hotel which in real life is the beaver building in Manhattan's Financial District John is greeted by Karen played by Lance Reddick now in Greek mythology karon is the ferryman of the River Styx in the Underworld whom you must pay for safe passage just as John must pay the concierge for Safe Haven as he transitions into this underworld Jon finds the door to the secret Club access with another coin like an arcade token and inside the lighting is all red and green red specifically frame with Winston Ian McShane the owner of the hotel and the game master sort of the Hades of this underworld he's always shown in red here where he is kind of the traffic cop a stoplight whereas Jon is framed in Green in their conversation because he's the go go light the Continental just kind of represents the traffic intersection for the underworld a heavily regulated stop and go safe Zone but Vigo we find out is breaking those Rules by doubling the Bounty for any assassin who will kill Jon in the hotel is it willing to break the rules of Continental double the Bounty ah so we learned that Jon's purpose isn't just Revenge it's really to restore honor to the game after Craven game rigging crept in in his absence this is why Winston allows Abby the bartender to tell Jon that Vigo hid Joseph at the red circle because Winston wants Jon to restore meaning to his rules now the name of this club the red circle is an homage to Le Circle Rouge a 1970 French crime Noir that was a major influence on this film John sticks up Francis the bouncer played by Kevin Nash he wanted kilogram and John lets him take the night off 60 pounds lost now in France's Russian he actually said 20 kilograms which is about 44 pounds but Nash confirmed an interview that by saying 60 pounds he was signaling to Jon that there were 60 guards inside and that is why John spared him he could lose that much weight and that was that should be telling him how many people were in there now technically 60 pounds would be like 27 kilograms which is roughly the amount of guys that John actually does kill inside now the bath house is bathed in blue and red light and I love the lateral shot as Jon slays the guy against the misted window and then stabs his bald guy up through the chin looking him in the eye as they both descend and the lowest level John's face goes from Blue to blood red in the light now John nearly has a clean shot at Yosef but Joseph is a woman with him in that hot tub another important rule only players in the game can be killed now you could argue that Joseph's company and the attendees of this russian-owned club are all part of the game but Jon never crosses that line only Joseph does a bit later when he uses his poor woman as the human shield so Jon Now switches to a Heckler and Coke p30l and if you count all the shots in the scene he always reloads after 15 rounds to adhere to its magazine capacity on the Dance Floor he actually fires to the beat of the dubstep music so that only the people in the immediate vicinity freak out but the other dancers don't panic because Panic would lead to more Crossfire and potential collateral damage Jon enters the VIP room and he only shoots the guys in the red shirts Star Trek red shirts and he spares everyone else now if you had counted he had fired 7 shots on the dance floor and he fires eight shots in this room that's 15. so he runs out click and here he just uses the pistol to jab the guy's neck and then takes a moment to reload and then shoots him in the head now in many scenes of these movies Keanu also tends to reload the pistol correctly by pulling the back of the slide instead of putting his hand over it to avoid catching his hand on the open ejection Port this kind of attention to detail continues to John Wick chapter 2 where at one point he uses a Kimber 1911 and does a press check because these guns are known for jamming now for whatever reason people think this press check details in the first movie but it's not it's in chapter two and then as Jon enters the balcony he reloads again always reloads the balcony Lieutenant is actually played by Tate Fletcher a stunt actor who does the physical performance of Paz visla in the Mandalorian but Jon finally hits a roadblock with kariel Keanu facing an actor who played an agent kariel throws Jon over the balcony and it is just a painful thud now this is one stunt the insurers of this movie would not allow Keanu Reeves to do so they hid a cut and the light lens flare in the camera tilt so the stunt actor didn't fall from the full distance Matrix Reloaded keymaker Randall duck Kim stitches Jon up your stitches will tear you'll bleed but you'll have full function ah an important detail setting up the final fight remember this so Marcus gets Jon and his crosshairs as he recovers and some have pointed out the slight breeze in Marcus's hair to say that Marcus might be accounting for the wind and his bullet trajectory which is why the bullet hits the pillow to the left no at that small range just across the street there is no way that slight of a breeze would affect a sniper rifle bullet by that much markets just aimed for the pillow when he shot the pillow to warn his friend the real detail here is that the framing makes it seem like Marcus has betrayed Jon and is racing to beat Miss Perkins to the kill into the Bounty but the reality is is that Marcus is just there to protect his friend after Vigo told him the contract Bounty would be open that's why Marcus asked if it was a closed contract he was trying to figure out are there going to be a lot of people trying to kill my friend see folks that is the secret of Easter eggs they are meant for you to enjoy the emotional subtext of a scene not to take you out of it with some hot take someone wrote on Reddit so as Jon fights Perkins both of them weaponize cloth in the scene all the fights are just well designed John uses his arm sling to twist the gun out of her hand and choke her he wraps a sheet around her head and punches it she uses her leather jacket as a key to perform a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Wing choke so then Jon enters the Russian church and he shoots everyone with Russian tattoos on their hands including the organist except this one old woman this is one attendee who's not part of the game she's just there to actually worship and Jon torches all of vigo's normal currency in his vault but you can see see he also has quite a few assassin gold coins in there so Jon is limiting vigo's options both in the Underworld and in the real world later Vigo says that included The Leverage he had all over the city audio recordings physical evidence blackmail because John to get out of the game to be with Helen he had to kill enough people to give Vigo his Empire so essentially Jon is taking back everything he had given to Vigo later when he has Jon captured Vigo says that both of them by trying to have a family John his wife Vigo his son violated the spirit of the game and left him cursed this life follows him thanks to you we are cursed you and I and so it's implied that there's some divine order to this world to try to leave the game or to cheat at it they makes you pay some cost now in the safe house Gregory plays a shooter game Dust 514 and his player name is Neo and one of the players he kills is Point Break John Snipes all of Joseph's bodyguards and he catches up to Yosef who tries to say it was just a dog before John puts him down like a dog metaphor never really like why would anyone ever ever shoot a dog Vigo meanwhile tortures and kills Marcus for helping Jon and leaves Marcus's body without calling Charlie to clean it up that's a major rule broken folks he left a mess and so even though Jon acquired his revenge against Joseph he returns to the underworld to deliver Justice upon Vigo because Jon is back in his game and he considers himself a defender of the honor of the game that is his root myth and we also see this game claiming Miss Perkins Winston catches up with her at the Central Park Bethesda Fountain that's the same location where Winston will meet Jon at the end of chapter 2 all in one efficient shot she has executed Winston walks toward us he passes the coin to Charlie and Charlie's crew moves in done and done Winston again intervenes as a game referee to help Jon punish Vigo for breaking the rules he says we'd live by a code which is why I'm not the one telling you that a certain helicopter a certain helipad is being fueled for a certain someone now the subtitle design of this film is really fun but I love this shot of Vigo behind us is literally behind Vigo when he turns back to see Jon chasing them even behind the wheel Jon uses impressive firearm technique he fires up through the roof to kill the guy he backs into and then when he leans out the window just another guy right two shots to the chest One To The Head And while charging another shooter he makes sure to reload again after the lawyer Avi asks for a gun repeatedly Diego holds off until his other guys are dead so that Avi will run off and draw John away so that Vigo can Ram Jon with SUV and we end up in a final one-on-one fight Vigo pulls out a knife and Jon remembering what the key maker doctor told him back in the hotel the stitches on his tummy gash have already opened probably so Jon allows Vigo to stick him back in that same cut so that he can break vigo's arm and take the Knight and stick bigo in the shoulder and so we Circle back to the opening and we learn why Jon had to hear Ellen's voice in this moment so we went from what are you doing John to let's go home and Jon finds a pet clinic and finds a pit bull in a kennel that if you look closely the paperwork is marked to be put down they literally have a stamp for to be put down and as John walks this dog home the color tone switches from cold blue back to warm golden this is the same Brooklyn Bridge Park walkway along the East River that this movie's First Act flashed back to Jon and Helen on their date Jon has earned an extra life not by scoring just his personal Revenge but by restoring the honor of the rules and I love breaking down these rules of John Wick and I cannot wait to see chapter four please support us by grabbing some deep dive merch at nerd riot.chopping and subscribe to the Deep dive turn those notifications on share this Channel with everyone you know follow me at eavos thanks for watching and those of the deep [Music] thank you

Channel: The Deep Dive

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Keywords: john wick, john wick 2014, john wick breakdown, john wick scene, john wick analysis, john wick chapter, john wick 4, john wick chapter 4, john wick stunts, john wick easter egg, john wick rules, keanu reeves, matrix, john wick explained, erik voss, deep dive, john wick deep dive

Id: oPRukn0eqLE

Length: 20min 39sec (1239 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 17 2023