‘John Wick’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Shea Serrano
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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 Werewolf 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 y'all. 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 is John Wick. On October 24th. Hey, John. People keep asking if I'm back. Yeah, I'm thinking I'm back.

John Wick. I'll get your laundry. No one's that good. It was 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 24th.

The NBA was starting as well. I was just coming off of a three-week suspension. We were working on the Greenland Basketball 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. CR, when did you see it? Did you see it 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,

Yeah.

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. When Google had Google Chat. Oh, GChat, yeah. Yeah, GChat. He was just out of nowhere, bing. Hey, 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 still teaching. And I got to it when I got to it at the house when I

was available for rent. And it just, fuck, 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 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? 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've even seen the theater because he, you know, he's a Keanu guy. He's a five o'clock guy. Your dad's on the forums, man. I think he was the one that told me about it, him and Lysanti. But it just, it kept going. It kept going. It was everything I wanted. And it hits at a really weird time for action movies. I had done for Graylin that year. I'd done the action movie championship belt. And I think the last couple of years had gone to Liam Neeson.

But we were moving into this nostalgia action thing with like the expendables and, 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 that,

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. 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, the, the Stallone Schwarzenegger era. That's a whole different thing. But from then to now, from the nineties to now, it's a, it's a whole new batch of guys. And this movie here makes him untouchable because he's, he has, as you mentioned, point break, he has the matrix, he has speed. He has the John Wick series. He's the, 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 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 and box office, like Schwarzenegger's hold on like American movies was bigger. But I think Keanu revolutionized action movies twice, at least in 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 Wick,

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 dumpuary where they're all vigilante movies, which is totally cool. I watch those movies all the time. But I have this memory of when Wick came out and Wick in 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, so when I wrote the action movie belt piece, which was in the spring of 2014,

Um, 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 everyman in these action things, right? Or Matrix is like we're in an alternate 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. He's a believable fighter. But 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 a 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-1 inside his house where he's just pissed off killing everybody, your hands are on your head and you're like –

how is Keanu Reeves doing this? What is going, like, you didn't, 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 to John Wick is he gets his ass kicked. So there is like this really cool grounding of the character where it's like,

Yo, he's he can get jumped and like he's 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 it's a superhero to for lack of a better term.

But Wick is like everything Wick does is governed by the laws of the movie. You know, it's like he only has so many bullets. They're shooting these these master shots rather than all these close ups. So you're actually seeing Keanu punch and get punched. And it's it just makes it all feel so real. You know, I thought I had John Wick two 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 101 minutes. So it passes the Craig Koralbeck test of, can you just tell me this movie in less than 100 minutes around then? 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 are 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 breadth away from,

Probably doing Redbox movies. Travolta Land. 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 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've been cooked. Yeah. Shay, once upon a time, you wrote a lot about action people. And John Wick and Keanu Reeves were involved in that book. What's your big picture Keanu as you put him against all of the other people from the last 50 years? What's different about him? What's different about him is he feels...

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 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, da, da, da, killing everybody. And then he runs out of bullets. Yeah.

And he just is like, shit. And now it's a fist fight. Like that sort of stuff that he's doing here, we saw it for the very first time when Bruce Willis did it in Die Hard. The iconic scene in that is when he has to run across the...

glass covered 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, 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 a quality that Arnold and Stallone and

Von Damme and Seagal 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 as it's 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. It wouldn't make sense for Sly 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 an 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 Shay's point about John McClane 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 Kathy the entire movie about like, oh, hey, have you guys seen Vigo? You guys have done some great work in the bathhouse, blah, blah, blah. Like you don't want to have a car shop. 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 was 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, they pay off the dead dog in part three when Halle 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 that's it. Watching that in the theater, everybody erupts. Oh my God, this is incredible. Like he's a funny guy, but he's not, he's not doing the funny thing. So Bill, you like the Wick movies in order they were released. Like that's your power ranking. 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 watched it with Shay and I, our 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 for this version of John Wick is my favorite. And I think when you, when, when you read about how they made it, how they were so strapped with the budget, how

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 four times in the night. They just had basically 10 stunt guys they just used over and over again. But-

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. I think as the Wix series went along, I felt like they lost that. And it just became more and more of almost matrixy. What I love about this is you really, CR always talks about like the best action movies. You know, where you are at the all times, like when he's in that nightclub and it's wide and he's doing all these different things. 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 do the same trick there. You can grab a Tony Jaa movie, the stairwell scene, 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've just kicked the shit out of them. And that's them saying, you guys did it first and you guys did it best. 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 rewatched this one recently,

Originally, I had it 3, 2, 1, 4. And then now, I guess because enough time has passed, when I rewatch this one, I'm like, man, this is definitely better than 2. I'm starting to feel, 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 a little more intimate. Yeah.

They do such a great job of like parceling out so little information in the first one, just enough to get you to follow 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 built out over the four years. Oh, man. 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 or 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, 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. CR, I think this is probably the best original action movie of this century would be my take.

I can't think of another one that, 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. If you're talking, there's probably up there too. Just like just a small group of just, wow, this is everything I want when I want an action movie. Yeah. What Shay, what year is the raid?

Shoot, I don't even know it offhand. Is it like 10? It was in the 2000s. Yeah. Wasn't it? I mean, the Raid and this are the two action movies that I probably go back to the most. And I think both have that same quality that you're 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 1, 4, 2, 3.

in my ranking, I think at this point, because I think four is like, what if John Wick was, it's great. Was an opera, you know, like what if John Wick was almost like a, like this, this incredible fantasy, you know? Uh, but yeah, it both read and Wick, uh,

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 gun food that way. I didn't know that Keanu Reeves could take punches like that, like or fall off of a balcony and you can hear his hip crack when he lands. Like I didn't know you could do that in action movies. So I agree. I'd probably put WIC up there if it's not, if it's not one, it's two. It's, 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 is amazing. I, Shay and I did that. I think that was in the first year we did take it. Um, that, that movie has some dopey parts, right? And it's just all of a sudden where it, 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 in this movie is a good example, right? John wick lost his wife, loves his 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's sleeping alone he just wants to get gas he just wants to house train this puppy maybe teach him how to 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 um we're gonna take a break and then i want to talk about a couple other things

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This episode is brought to you by McDonald's. Sometimes classics, they get a twin. Like Goodfellas, Casino isn't the same type of movie, but you know, they're like fraternal twins. Scorsese did it, De Niro's in it, Pesci's in it. That's what happens. Well, another classic is getting a twin. Introducing the Chicken Big Mac. Oh my God, that sounds delicious. Two chicken patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, and pickles.

on a sesame seed bun. Sound familiar? So they wanted me to decide whether a chicken Big Mac is actually a Big Mac. And my take is, yeah, anything that has all of the other Big Mac stuff, but it could be chicken. It could be beef. A Big Mac's a Big Mac. The meat can be interchangeable. I'm in. I'm in on the chicken Big Mac. It's not, not a Big Mac.

but you can get it while you can at participating McDonald's for a limited time. All right. So other reasons John Wick jumped out. We mentioned the continental. I think what's so cool about John Wick one 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, 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? Is he, 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 WIC too, 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? Yeah.

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 12. 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 – like, I'm safe here. Like, he –

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, right? 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 it says. There's all these bad... They're talking in some code that I don't even really understand. How do you even learn this code? That's one of the, I guess, the great action movies. I have a lot of questions about how we're communicating the rules and regulations and just what people need to know. But yeah, I was trying to think of...

Other movies that do this, there's a little bit of it in Bourne, whereas Matt Damon's character keeps learning a little bit more about himself. You then learn more about 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 Bourne.

There's some other stuff. I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but that whole... It's like basically if you made a movie with Christopher Walken's character in Man on Fire had a huge role where it's like the guy who is the handler, the facilitator, the guy who 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. It's just like an off book CIA program. Yeah. Yeah. Some dark agency or whatever. And this one is all, it's the underworld. So everything is in play. 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. So Wick spawns three sequels. It spawns a prequel TV series. It spawns 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. Yeah.

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. Supposedly he did a one-day 15-hour shoot and just filmed all of his car scenes. Willem Dafoe.

Out of nowhere? Perfect. Just with a huge part and Bridget Moynihan. And our guy Dean Winters as Vigo's attorney. Anyway, so the screenwriter was Derek Kolstad, and he had an idea basically inspired by a couple of terrible revenge movies he watched. But originally, the character was supposed 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

that changed, but he, you know, he's, he took stuff he liked from a whole bunch of stuff, including the killer by John Woo and spaghetti Westerns and all kinds of things. But the only time, 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. Cause I think in the original screenplay, it was going to be like, people had kind of forgotten about him.

And maybe thought it was like a fairy tale or something. And that's because he was going to be 75 when he shows up or whatever. But that's the only one. And it almost strains credulity where you're like, how do you guys not know about John Wick? I had that in nitpicks. Yeah. I think he was conceived as like the old man with Jeff Bridges. It was that kind of thing. So yeah, so they barely had enough money.

They finished the movie, cut costs left and right. And in August 2014, which is three months before the movie came out, still had no distributor. Then Lionsgate got involved, offered them, you know, all right, no upfront payment, not that many release. 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 budget made $85 million. Sadly, no Roger Ebert review because he had passed away at this point. What do you think? What do you think Roger Ebert would have thought? I was afraid to put AI in on this. I think he would have liked it, but found it mind numbing and a little thin.

You know, I think Roger, Roger is a character guy. He'd love to, he'd love to maybe know a little bit more about Helen. You know, what was she? Should I have to chat GBP for this? I don't, yeah, I'm going to stay away from it.

Okay. All right. Today's most rewatchable scene is brought to you by Paramount+. A mountain of movies awaits on Paramount+. I don't know if you've heard of Top Gun, Maverick, Mission Impossible, Fallout, or Gladiator. Have you heard of those three? I think so. They're on Paramount+. Yeah. Some good ones, including Scream 6, Smile, A Quiet Place Day One. They have movies for the kiddos like Paw Patrol, the movie, and Dora 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's son. Love it. Love it. How much? Excuse me. How much for the car? She's not for sale. Oh, I love dogs. I love dogs.

You have good day, sir.

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 is still in the car or not at that point, but he's doing like just these awesome driving tricks. And then John Wicca, a premium guy, like high grade Tecron. Like you think he's got to put good juice in that thing or what? It'd be funny if he just got like the middle gas. Yeah.

Yeah. It's like, I want to eat a little better than the worst one, but not premium is just a myth, right? It's all middle. And then we get the break in, but I think just the important thing I wanted to point out is 16 minutes. The entire movie has 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 with John Wick has a purpose and we're ready to go. Um,

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. Oh. That's all you need. That's all you need. All right, first real rewatchable. Viggo yelling at his son and explaining John Wick. We called him Baba Yaga. The boogeyman? Well, John wasn't exactly the boogeyman.

he was the one you said to kill the boogie man oh john is a man of focus wonderful the baba yaga 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 gonna get a giant jackhammer and i'm just gonna wail away at my basement floor and it's like what's he doing um shay 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 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 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 gonna happen but it's not gonna be good for Theon Lovejoy that's what I know

Also, just the idea of the guy you send to kill the boogeyman is one of the most oh shit moments in action movie history. 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 real life version of the boogeyman. And they were like, no, he's not that. He's the...

He's who kills the real life version of the boogie man. 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 that apparently pulled off. We don't even really know what the task was, but he must've 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 quarterlies 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? Yeah.

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 Wick's house. I think John kills 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 his 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 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. Shay, 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 um we always watch his movies and we go why didn't they just shoot him one more time in the head to make sure he's dead john wicks like don't worry i've got this he always has the extra the extra headshot and then the other thing is he's good at the tactical where like that later in the nightclub and 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

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, he sees more of the field than everybody else. That's for sure. Yeah. And then, and then the fact that he is using so much of his own like body weight and counterweight in the fights, uh,

it's 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, these rear naked chokes or arm bars and doing all this jujitsu. And it's like, man, this is just, just so many good decisions in a row. CR is a black belt in judo. Did you, did you feel like the judo is realistic? Yeah.

I just appreciated that he never fought dirty. There's not a lot of nut shots. He never goes to tear someone's eye out. He only bites one thumb. You know, it's a guy. He played the game the right way. He did. It is true. He is above the board.

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

to pull the eyeball out, move in his back pocket. Right. He didn't want to waste it. 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...

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 hurt so bad. I like a leg. I mean, I like an arm. Okay. Waste disposal dinner for 12...

See, 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 his franchise. He wanted to branch out. He had made some money. He wanted to invest in something, get something for himself. Next scene, Wick's revenge, the nightclub fight, starting with the aforementioned bathroom when he breaks the guy's leg and kills him, 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, I just want to do it. Flu game. Flu game. Yeah. It was his flu game. So we have in that, in that sequence, Bill, I just, just give you the, the, the sort of breakdown. There's Francis, the doorman. 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 that 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 jackets. Yeah.

dance floor and then there's the balcony that 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 2000 person nightclub with pounding music and he's just gonna fucking kill this guy who can go through the gun and then the balcony it's it's uh

It's really one of the greats. You agree with that, Shay, that this is up there, 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, 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? It's a, it's, 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 Five.

I still don't understand how they did that. There's probably a seven-minute 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 the hospital scene in Hard Boiled when they go to the hospital? How long is that, though? That's like 30 minutes. Fuck.

Like 30 minutes straight. John Woo, 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, they're in quarters. They're in quarters. Yeah.

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 Willem Dafoe across the thing trying to shoot him through the window. And then Miss Perkins comes in like just a crazy maniac trying to take him down. That scene I have as a rewatchable. The church robbery fire. The wick gets captured. I'm thinking I'm back.

In that moment I received some semblance of hope. An opportunity to grieve unalone. And your son... That from me... Haku... 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 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 Dafoe shoots at him in the hotel, he's helping him there. Yeah, he's giving him a heads up. 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, $4 million is a lot. I don't know. 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. But Defoe is not in the Continental. No, true. You're killing someone in the Continental. He's still in the network, though. 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 you a reason why. I think the first time, the second time, the third time you 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, between the three of us, we've probably seen 65,000 action movies. We've all seen a version of this scene. Knock, knock, knock. The cops are there. The guy opens the door. Oh, is everything cool? Yeah, it's fine. And then the cop catches a glimpse of like a foot on the ground, pushes the door open, sees a dead body. And now...

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, when he opens the door and there's a dead guy there and the guy and the cop is Jimmy is just like, are you working, John? You working again? No, I just sorted some stuff out. I'll leave you be 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, this is a brand new thing I'm about to get into because it should have gone left and it, 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 want it 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 biggest, gross rewatch we'll see brought to you by Paramount Plus. From action blockbusters to thrillers to favorites for the whole family, find something new to watch every week. A mountain of movies awaits on Paramount Plus. Plans start at $7.99 a month. Start streaming now. We're going to take one more break and do the rest of the categories.

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It's a Camry vibe. Learn more at toyota.com slash Camry. So Shay, 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 Shay 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. Adrienne Palicki 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, but she's really good at this movie. Lance Reddick, Ian McShane, and Adrian Palicki 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 aged 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 dudes texting each other. You know what I mean? It's kind of like... Yeah, it's right around... Got mobile phones. It's a little bit more elevated than the Bourne movies where they're just using Nokias. But 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 raised in their 2014 title. Yeah, baby. Yeah, baby. It was a good year in the Serrano house. Now, 10 years later, you have the alien Victor Wimpyama. We're back. In dreams of more titles. You're back, baby. What's aged the best? The nickname Baba Yaga? Baba Yaga? I said that wrong. Baba Yaga is the Russian boogeyman name. It 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 we had an NBA star named Bobby Yaga, would you nail the pronunciation of his name or would you just kind of butcher it? I'd probably say Yaga half the time and some Yaga. And then Rasul would be like, it's Yaga. It's Yaga, Bill. Could we have, if there was a Russian star...

I don't know. I'm just, just backpocketed. If we ever get like, uh, the Russian version of women, the continental, we talked about how great that that is from a, what's age, the best standpoint. Um, I have some more, but, uh, shady, do you have any, what's age, the best that jumped out to you?

I think this is an addition to the Palicki thing we were just talking about seeing Tyra 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. Yeah.

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 hitman 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

I think watching this, there's a spotlight on her. She's great. Speaking of 2014, Miss Perkins really started the era of assassin empowerment. It was really about betting on yourself.

She was like, fuck these continental rules. 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's aged the best? I love that there's no cops in this movie except for Don from the newsroom. If there had been a whole other plot line about 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 Bratt as the detective chasing him just to see what Shay's reaction was. Because Shay's like, I completely agree. Then I was like, yeah, but Benjamin Bratt was the detective. He was like, oh, motherfucker. Hold on a second. Some more of what's aged the best. I like movies that show a much later scene first.

And then we have to circle back with, so that seems 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, uh, getting punched in the stomach and immediately puking. Yeah. Which happened to Theon Lovejoy. Well, you know, that's a good body blower. You just, you're spitting up a bile and mucus. Winston calling him Jonathan. Yeah.

Sean. 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 Wick? Because of this thing. Yes. I just say the Seanathan every time. That's good. I like that. The, uh,

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 Connelly 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 like sticks out like a sore thumb. There's no reason for it. Hey, John. 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 it best? Wanted 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. Theon Lovejoy as Vigo's loser 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... 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. Theo Lovejoy played at NC State. Theon Lovejoy. Theon Lovejoy. 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, and, 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. 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 Nyquist CR?

Who plays Vigo. He's just one of those guys, right? Yeah, and he's a really good character actor. I mean, 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 3 Clap Award for most gif-able 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, I'm thinking I'm back. I see that one a lot. Yeah, that's good. And then the other one is when he's getting his gun ready.

to go out to kill everybody is like another one you see a lot of. Yeah, that or hammering the concrete. Yeah, the jackhammer in the concrete is good too. Great shot. Go order a word. Most cinematic shot. What'd 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 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, which he is. Would you have a shot? I'm so happy that we have just taken to calling him Lovejoy.

instead of Greyjoy. Greyjoy is in the Game of Thrones, but Lovejoy is just funnier. I thought it was Lovejoy. I tried to tell you it was Greyjoy. Did you text him? No, I said it. 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 him and it's all this empty space. And you're like, how is he ever going to get out of here? It's such good filmmaking. I'm fucking dying. I'm dying at Lovejoy, man. I might need it. Lovejoy's good. Why didn't you guys tell me? I shouldn't have done it the whole time. Because now I just keep thinking, it sounds like somebody who would be hanging out with Reggie Hammond. It's just so awesome. Yeah.

I really like the cemetery shot of Wick and Dafoe in the beginning. The black and white with the way they're closed. It just looks cool. Okay. Den of Thieves, Benihana Awards, scene, ceiling, location. It's got to be the nightclub. It's Continental. Isn't it 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- You go continental? I think I would go continental, yeah. I mean, that's the thing, the idea of that location spawned a whole show and everything. And it's like become like a major part of the- But that's 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. Yeah.

Big Kahuna burger where best use of food and drink the cereal for wick and the dog. Yeah. A tough, tough beat for people who love dogs. Like, Oh my God, don't give a puppy cereal. That's going to be diarrhea central. But, uh, but a key thing, the Vincent chase award for, are we sure this character was actually good at his job? Can we talk about Vigo's conciliary Dean Winters? Yeah.

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? Where's your gun? Yeah, it's like he was coming back from a fantasy draft and didn't realize that there was violence and murder in the air. I can't believe I took Marvin Harrison in the first round. Oh, shit. It's John Wick. 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, yeah. 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 Yega, like...

First of all, they have guns drawn on him after he's killed, I don't know, 50, 60 of their people. 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 Powers sketch of...

uh, why didn't you just kill like Dr. Evil's son? Why don't you just kill him? He's right there. Just kill him. Scott, shut up. Uh, I don't understand it. I, every time I watch this movie, it's the flaw that jumps out at me. So that'd be my pick. What do you have? Let me throw an idea out there. Do you think Vigo in the back of his mind, maybe, maybe even towards the middle of his mind was like, maybe I can get him back on my team.

Oh, like a Pat Riley LeBron thing? Yeah. Wouldn't it be great to have a pissed off Baba Yaga 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 happen. What do you think of that theory, Shay? 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 do they kill him right but then this goes back to him somehow making John Wick's wife 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 gonna do that he couldn't just walk up and shoot him he needed to say some stuff

Because as soon as John starts talking and explaining why he's doing everything he's doing, Viggo just fucking rolls his eyes. He's like, God. Yeah, you're a dog. You're a dog. CR, 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 2.

Probably like one per movie. Also a lot of car accidents. A lot of like, just like, like seven cars that, that 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 aged the worst mentioned 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 her into playing John Wick's wife, she only wanted to read her scenes in the script so she didn't form 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 want to read the script? I don't know if these flashbacks, I want to make sure I play them correctly. I just thought 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. I don't know. 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? I mean, I understand what you're saying. He would definitely be drenched in arterial spray. 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'm not positive. I like the we're killing strangers song just as a song. So this is my what's aged 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 pod 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 sometimes streamers for TV shows, when they lose the licenses, they have to replace the music. Yeah, but John Wick is now a billion-dollar franchise. Can they not go back and put a sick Chemical Brothers song or something over this? We could come up with something better than Killing Strangers, which is so on the nose, and they do twice as...

Yeah, they run it back too. And I don't even, I didn't really love it the first time. Over the Willem Dafoe killing it. It's just like, dude, just have like, 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. I literally would not touch. But yeah, I would have grabbed one of the ones. Oh my God. Amazing stuff. Hasn't aged a day. Shay, any other what's aged the worst for you? No, I don't know if this, maybe I should have mentioned this at what's aged the best because as I was about to say it as what's aged the worst, I realized 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 Wick is pointing his gun at him. I like when a bad guy grabs somebody for a human shield. It's just such a classic Lovejoy move to do that. Fucking Lovejoy.

What's the best human shield moment of all time? Sizemore and Heat? Oh my God. No. It's got to be Sizemore, right? Wesley Snipes picking up the little girl in New Jack City. Oh yeah. That's pretty... I was thinking Sizemore just because it has the slow-mo of him turning around thinking he got away and Pacino just has him lined up. I really love when... And that was 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 like that's like in the untouchables with Andy Garcia like tosses him the gun and he's like lying on the ground RoboCop when he shoots through the dress and hits the guy in the dick like because he's holding the woman in front of him and 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 Hannah Rubinick Partridge overacting award. They knew and they let it happen. Don't you call me lady. I come in here. I give these things to you. Give me what I got.

Listen. I treated you like a son. You fucking stabbed me in the heart. Fuck you. Fuck you.

You could put I'm thinking I'm back here 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 Rubenek. Just because you're the Rubenek 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 Rubenek, but it can also be what's aged 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. And 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 have worked as well in the John Wick. 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 at 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. That's really good. That's really good. John Wick 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 Leguizamo was in this movie for 90 minutes more.

Because he is so good. He's just perfect. He drops in, does his John Leguizamo thing. The part where the guy's telling him that he killed his dog and John Leguizamo kind of laughs about it. The owner of the car, did you kill him or what? No. You sure as hell fucked up his dog. You fucked up his dog. That's what you did. You fucked up his dog. It's crazy shit, man. Yeah.

Oh, look at you. He's great. Brilliant acting by John Leguizamo. 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. He does an awesome job. I don't want to go on too big of a tangent, but he's one of those guys, like we think about this, some athletes too, where you're just like, was that guy used correctly? Was that guy on 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 correctly, like in Baz Luhrmann, 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 2. 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 you, if he had a little bit more of a, like Al from diehard role where like they could talk on the phone a couple of times throughout the movie. You know, I like that. I like that. I like that. Good role for you to see our from diehard role. People just call CR. Um, my hottest take is, uh,

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 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 it. 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 blood he took. 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. He coached a fourth grade basketball team. His wife died. Well, I mean, like what's going on? What was 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 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 it if he had a cat. That's all I'm saying.

Ian McShane replaced Jason Isaacs as Winston. That's the only casting. What if I could find best that guy award? We have a lot of, a lot of people who are kind of became the, like Lance Reddick became Lance Reddick. He used to be that guy, but then Clark Peters, same thing. Tyra from Friday nights. I know her name's Adrian Palicki, Dean Winters. I know his name's Dean Winters. It really comes down to a Theon Lovejoy against, uh,

Luther from 48 hours. That's my Patrick Kelly, man. 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. I think that's the winner. The only other thing I was going to say is that the actor who plays Victor, who's Yosef's boy, uh,

He's one of those guys. Is he from Billions? Yeah, he's one of the DAs of Billions. He's Connerty. 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. Mm-hmm.

For me, it's Leguizamo. You could talk me into 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 not the winner. Close the polls. Can I tell you a very quick little story? John Leguizamo came to San Antonio as part of whatever his 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 my birthday slash Christmas present. So we got front row seats to see John Leguizamo 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 start making jokes or whatever. And he picked me 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. I don't think that was your brush with John Leguizamo. That was my brush. 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. 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. This is...

You know, I think people know John Wick's really good at this. I mean, I'm not surprised. He's just doing headshots and the headshots are just so important. 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 are so important.

Half-assed internet research. Keanu, four months of training, several hours per day in a gym, strict diet, stretches, choreography, trained in judo, Japanese jiu-jitsu, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and Arnis? Arnis? I don't even know what that is. Tactical gun training with the LA SWAT Navy SEALs.

Learn stunt driving skills. Learned how to drift a car while aiming a gun. That's sick. That last one is awesome. Adrian Palicki, trained in judo and jujitsu for a few months. Spent two weeks learning her 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 as 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 you. I think I'm going to spend a lot of time in some bathhouses to kind of get in character. Jesus. Whatever you need, lovejoy. Yeah, like,

Go for it. Also, the Red Circle, the nightclub, is named after one of my favorite movies, which is Le Cirque de Rouge, 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 $1,359 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. He's like, I can't. I can't wear the wetsuit. And they were worried he was going to catch mononucleosis or something. Stahelski 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? Nyquist, yeah. Is it Nyquist? 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 Wick kills is, Shay? 67. I'm going to go 112. Shay wins. 84. Boom. Shay's closer to the pin. Apex Mountain.

what's keanu matrix yes yeah it's got to be made has to be right yeah yeah think about how many things have come out of the matrix imagine doing john wick and having that not be your apex but apparently we're here revenge movies no i don't think so i don't think so either fake hotel universe is 100 yes 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 fourth night 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 Palicki. I think Tyra. I feel like season one, season two of Friday Night Lights has to be. Yeah. Even being in the crazy Landry murder plot.

Probably was more Apex-y. She caught a body. The one extra headshot shot, this is Apex Mountain for me. I really feel like Wick took, it's been in pieces of different movies and Wick's 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 Eastern Promises. I like Viggo 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 in movies before, but maybe not. Yeah, Joker did that, right? In Dark Knight. A few people have done that one.

How about Vigo? Just the name Vigo was this apex metal. I think Vigo Mortensen gets that, yeah. It's fun talking 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 still think that's the best. I like three. 21st century action movies?

I'm going to say it. I feel like 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, it like it, 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 cause Shay's here. Yeah.

But I think if you're comparing Fast Four to Wick 1, Fast Four left, I left the theater and I'm like, there's gonna be six more of those. Yeah. It was just so clear. They had stumbled on the right recipe and it was still going. Wick, I, you know, whether they were, knew they were gonna make a sequel or not, who knows? It seems like they were barely trying to get the movie done.

But fast forward, 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, Shay, since the last time we heard. Cruz or Hanks? I like it. If 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. Easy Cruz win. I wish we could get 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 borrowed from a lot of stuff. This would have been a great cruise part. I don't know if he ever would have done it. Racehorse, Rock Band, Wrestler, 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 lore of John Wick 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 him 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 money.

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 that

I'm not going to pay the same price to get a body clean out of my house as I am to come into the club. I think, Shay, he even pays the valet at the end of the movie a gold coin. With a 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 hundred yard dash versus like you're in like the fucking swimming relay and the backstroke should be like a smaller medal. What's wrong with the backstroke? Why should Tyrese Halliburton get a bigger medal than the guy who does backstroke? Listen, he had to win six games. You know, it's, 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 movie. The adjudicator has a totally different coin, much bigger. It's black 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, what the fuck's up with these gold coins? CR, what do you have? Um...

As a nitpick, I find that the Viggo 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 villain's older. And it's also like John Wick kind of throws that fight. I'm like, you're telling me John Wick couldn't fuck Viggo up instantaneously? Yeah.

I had that as my number one nitpick. That fight should be over in five seconds. 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 putting him down once. Yeah, it's a little like the end of Gladiator where that fight's 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 just... 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 like 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. Like, I don't 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 eighth and 25th John wick murder, 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 be like, you know what? Let's, uh, I think there's another club down the street. If you notice the guy next to me is bleeding out. This is a great song. Uh,

Look, we mentioned this earlier, but Lovejoy not knowing who Wick is when Wick isn't that old is 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. Right.

So in real life, Baba Yaga 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 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? That's a good question.

I gotta figure that out. Now you're in my head, CR. 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, to what extent is he out? 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 Leguizamo. 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.

Yeah. You don't think it was just bulletproof glass though? I don't know. I guess not if everybody just broke in. He was throwing people through 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. Oh, okay. Yeah. But that's like the first scene of 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 when I saw John McClane. Oh, so you're method potting. A method potting. 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. Yeah.

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 enjoyed it. One more backstory on Miss Perkins. A Noah Baumbach-directed prequel of Helen and John's married life. I'm just like, so what were you doing in the late 90s? It's just like, well, not much. Let's not talk about it. How come you can talk so many languages? Yeah. You know, big student in college. You really like Tchaikovsky.

Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Sam Jackson, JT Walsh, Byron Mayo, Harling Mays, Evil Laughing, Ramon Raymond, or Philip Baker Hall, CR? Hey, I'm John. I was dealing with Super Baba Yaga. You got me crying over a dog like that Sarah McLachlan song in the P-Dad. 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 going to be that way. I had to do it. Wayne's back. We, we haven't had Shay on since we added evil laughing Ramon Raymond to the, to the pod for Andy Garcia's character. No one selected Ramon Raymond ever. What do you think? Just one Oscar who gets it. It's gotta 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 Greeny. I think Marcus Spears is going to be on.

My dad has been retired for like 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. I guess my dad does. My dad gets up early too. Wick being like, I think Orlovsky is breaking down Anthony Richardson today. Heard Mina Kimes is coming on later. Could a boogie hitman, boogie man 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 aunt 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 Chechnyan, 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. The one I was always the most afraid of, we talked about it earlier, the Albanians in Taken. Albanians is another one. They just seem like...

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 thought Bulgarians was taken, but Shay's right. It's Albanians. I think Albanians number one. For some reason, I know the least about that country. It's Russian in the equalizer, by the way. Yeah, Russians.

Albanian's scary. The Equalizer does such a good job spreading the wealth, man. Because it's like the Russians, then it's the ex-CIA guys, and then it's the Italian mafia. If Jokic's brothers were in one of these movies...

Like Wick 5. I still feel like we need those guys somewhere in there. I'm the most afraid of the Czechnians because in UFC, those guys, anytime they're in a fight, you're like, oh, this guy's going to be a fucking badass. This is an unanswerable question, a little bit of a nitpick, but you mentioned Jokic'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 Kirill 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, his, who he's fighting against his companions. Yeah. Well, we went over it earlier. They were, they had 10 stunt people that they had to just keep reusing over and over again. Best double feature choice. John Wick two.

I have a better tomorrow. Andy and Red's Watanay Award for What Happened Next Day was John Wick 2. What piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie, Shay? 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 you could buy that. I want a real one. I don't want a prop. I want a real one. I want the sledgehammer.

I would like to... What's that in your office? That's the fucking sledgehammer John Wick used to reclaim his Bobby Yeager 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 randomly watch it at work meetings. Have it 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. Yeah, she had no idea. 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 Yaga.

Just be like, you might run into a guy one day and just make sure it's not this dude. Yeah, at dinner one night, maybe second course that story comes up. Just 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 he thought of John Wick. Come on, Craig. Come on, Craig. I liked Night 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'd 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 period.

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 it's a 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, this is art house action. You know what I mean? You want to trigger Baba Shea up there. Baba Shea. Baba Shega. Yeah, I don't know. I think this is like the most efficient world building in a hundred 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. I'm 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 in 2000. This is 2014. Matrix starts 1999. It's doable. I'm just...

I'm 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. 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 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, it's the coolest action scenes ever. In my opinion, they're amazing.

Shay, maybe this could be the next thing you write where somebody kidnaps Victor Wimbinyama and you as yourself have to get him back. Yeah, you go to the basement. You just start hitting the sledgehammer 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 him back,

I'm not going to make it. It's gone. When they send those 12 guys to my house in the beginning, I'm immediately dead. Like immediately. John Wick. 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.

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, especially how he reloads. His reloads, yeah. 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 taps the guy. It's like, whoa.

Well, that's it for John Wick. And by the way, we already did John Wick 2. I don't know why we did John Wick 2 before John Wick 1, but it was a thing that happened. I think we just got it. John Wick 2 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 2. So now if you want to hear John Wick 2, that is in the Rewatchables archives.

As well. Shay Serrano, a true pleasure to do a podcast with you again. I'm so happy to see you, buddy. I had a great time. CR, thanks as always. Produced by Craig Horbeck. Thank you as well. And you can watch us on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. See you next week on The Rewatch List.