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This week, on The Usual Bang Bang:
We’re celebrating John-uary with a puppy-avenging assassin who’s also the emotional victim of car theft. Keanu Reaves has to return to a luxury murder hotel to drop some gold coins (Chuck E. Cheese-style) again. Keanu called his favorite stunt guys, David Leitch and Chad Stahelski, who say they’ll only do the stunts if they can also direct for the first time. You know what all that makes? A game-changing new era of Great Bad Movies.
Keanu Reeves delivers the most emotionally devastating “Yeah” in cinema history, and funniest line in this movie is “Oh.” Twice.
So it’s time to start Dafoe-ing and check in with Joe and Greg, who have the conversation that needed to happen about a movie that slowly but thoroughly changed the lives of everyone in the GBU (Great Bad Universe.) They ask the important questions. create unique drinking games just for this movie… Basically everything you’d need to live a better life. Let’s get to the show!
Joe’s Back of the Box
After Russian mobsters kill his dog and steal his car, John Wick, comes out of retirement to exact his brutal revenge. Suffering the heartbreak of losing his wife, John Wick (Keanu Reeves), crosses paths with Russian mobsters. They kill his dog, the last thing his wife gave to him, and steal his car. With nothing to lose and a lifetime as the greatest hitman ever, John Wick rains down his vengeance
The REAL Back of the Box
It is rare to witness a new genre’s beginnings. But John Wick will join Die Hard, Jason Bourne, and the Fast and Furious (from 4 on) movies as a Zeitgeist moment. The new action style combined with the right actor at the right time with a plot people could connect to makes this not only the start of the John Wick-averse but also brings about a new breed of action directors that came up as stunt coordinators and 2nd unit directors. The resulting movies have helped to propel the action genre forward.