"I have no choice?"
"This is what you agreed to, Jonathan."
The John Wick movies are ruled by consequence.
“Rules.”
“Exactly, rules.
Without them, we live with the animals”
In this franchise, we can be certain that for every action,
there will be a reaction, and for every rule that is broken,
there will be a deadly consequence.
"You dishonor the marker, you die.
You kill the holder of the marker, you die.
You run?
You die."
This guiding principle applies to everything we see in the plot
about a deadly assassin getting sucked back into the world he tried to leave.
“You look terrible.”
“No, I look retired."
And it also extends behind the camera.
The filmmakers and stars hold themselves to strict creative rules
which define the form of these tightly structured,
rigorously rehearsed and choreographed films.
So you might say the John Wick franchise is an ode to discipline.
It’s discipline that elevates the movies above many of
their action contemporaries, and it’s discipline that makes John Wick
the very best in his business.
Yet this dogged devotion to rules pretty much ruins Jon’s life,
dragging him further and further into the mire
he desperately wants to escape.
“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 at their essence, these movies are an investigation into what
it really means to live your life according to a set of personal laws.
“We were professionals.
Civilized.”
“Do I look civilized to you?”
Does his extreme rule-following make John Wick a role model
or a cautionary tale?
Here’s our Take.
This video is sponsored by Audible,
the largest selection of audio books on the planet.
Follow our link, Audible.com/THETAKE
or text "THETAKE" to 500-500 to get
a thirty day Audible trial and to get your first audio book,
plus two Audible originals for free.
We may think of contract killing as a lawless, chaotic enterprise.
But the assassin underworld John Wick exists within is defined by rules
that members of this society respect and abide by
“If they're willing to break the rules of Continental, double the bounty.”
In the first movie, we’re introduced to the Continental,
a ritzy hotel for assassins
in which no business, i.e. murder, is permitted to be conducted
“No business can be conducted on these premises lest incurring
heavy penalties.”
As the world expands in Chapters 2 and 3 to include the mysterious
High Table, we get more insight into how a myriad of archaic regulations
govern the actions of every person in this ecosystem.
And on top of this structure,
individuals are bound by their word and the choices they made in their pasts.
“Markers," a form of blood oath
that assassins swear to each other, must always be repaid.
“For a man to grant a marker to another
is to bind a soul to a blood oath.”
The filmmakers' commitment to this central theme means that
nearly every single plot development in the franchise stems from
someone breaking a rule and suffering the consequences.
“Two rules that cannot be broken, Jonathan.
No blood on continental grounds,
and every marker must be honored.”
Once Viggo Tarasov’s greatest assassin,
John was offered the rare chance to exit this game
"Suddenly one day, he asked to leave.
It was over a woman, of course."
on the condition that he kill all Viggo’s rivals in one night.
"So I made a deal with him.
I gave him an impossible task"
To Viggo's surprise, John pulled off the impossible,
so the agreement was honored.
John would be left alone to live the quiet life.
What sets off the plot of these movies
is that Viggo’s son Iosef unknowingly violates this accord.
"The bodies he buried that day laid the foundation of what we are now.
And then, my son, a few days after his wife died, you steal his car
and kill his f--BEEP dog."
That action leads to John raining hell down on Tarasov’s entire operation.
Thus, movie one is entirely structured around one character breaking a rule
that he, admittedly, didn’t know about,
and everyone suffering the consequences for it.
"Your son took that from me, stole that from me,
[yelling] killed that from me!"
There are a couple of interesting implications that
follow from all this.
First of all, note that Iosef's ignorance of
the rule he broke doesn’t matter here.
“It’s not what you did, son, that angers me so.
It’s who you did it to”
Intentionality is irrelevant.
If you transgress by accident or on purpose, the outcome is
exactly the same, and it makes sense,
if your society depends on strict adherence to law
that you can only take into account an individual’s manifest actions.
This ignoring of intentions serves to preserve order in the assassin world,
but it doesn’t allow for fairness, humanity or mercy.
These things are discarded, in service of law.
"It was just a--"
Second, it’s not just the rule-breaker himself who’s punished.
The entire community feels the pain
“So you can either hand over your son, or you can die
screaming alongside him.”
If the balance of peace is to
be based on shared laws, everyone must invest in their enforcement,
and that means everyone must suffer when they’re broken.
Thus this society's status quo is actually very fragile,
dependent on total group obedience,
which explains why it responds so brutally to transgressions.
"An eye for an eye, John.
You know how it goes."
The High Table is even shown to
exert its influence over the official authorities of our public world.
"You, uh, working again?"
"No.
Just sorting some stuff out."
"Oh well, I’ll leave you be then."
If this power system can reduce even the police, the symbols of the rule of
law itself, to tacit sanctioners of violence and destruction,
that implies that no individual really has any choice but to serve
the ways of this assassin’s world.
What emerges from this picture is not a collection of human beings with agency,
but just the many parts of a larger machine.
"So you’re free?"
"Am I?"
"No.
Not at all."
John Wick: Chapter 2 digs into the rules and consequences theme
even more explicitly.
After John comes out of retirement for several nights of bloody vengeance,
he is seen to have returned to the business of killing.
This brings Italian mafia boss Santino D'Antonio back to America
in order to call in the ‘marker’ he has over John.
"This is your blood.
You came to me.
I helped you.
If you don’t do this, you know the consequences."
Because John owes him, he can make John do anything for him.
"You had no choice."
The ending of Chapter 2 sees John himself breaking a cardinal rule,
when he kills Santino in the Continental hotel.
“What have you done?”
“Finished it”
After this transgression, Winston then gives John an hour’s grace period
to get away before every assassin in the city comes for him.
“You leave me no choice but to
declare you excommunicado”
The entire plot of John Wick: Chapter 3 Parabellum
subsequently deals with the
fallout of the decisions made and rules broken in Chapter 2.
"A fourteen million dollar bounty on his head.
And everyone in this city wants a piece of it."
Winston is in the crosshairs of the High Table,
who have sent The Adjudicator
to the city to investigate his part in John’s escape.
"Mr. Wick broke the rules.
I trust you understand the repercussions if he survives."
Even the Bowery King, who helped
John in Chapter 2 by giving him a gun with seven bullets,
"So I guess you have a choice.
You want a war?
Or do you wanna just give me a gun?"
"Somebody, please!
Get this man a gun!"
suffers seven cuts of a sword.
There are many more examples of
characters suffering the consequences
of disregard for the rules
"Ms. Perkins.
Your membership to The Continental has been,
by thine own hand, revoked."
And while the theme might be as obvious as a shotgun blast to the face,
it gives the movies a very rigid structure,
which ensures we understand everyone’s motivations at all times
and the films don't feel chaotic or messy,
despite the incredible levels of action and carnage on display.
Meanwhile, on the deeper level,
what does this focus on rules and consequences mean
in the John Wick movies?
The lesson we can read into these films is that ultimately
that level of commitment to rules is detrimental over time
"Vengeance, it's all you have."
John Wick is the very best at what he does, feared and respected
in equal measure by the assassin underworld.
“Well, John wasn't exactly The Boogeyman.
He was the one you sent to kill the fucking Boogeyman.”
And that’s thanks to his strict adherence to the rules of his training.
"John is a man of focus, commitment, sheer will."
As a professional, he thrived within the structure this gave his life.
But as a person he suffers from his lack of human agency.
He's more like a robot or a slave
"What brought you back, John?"
"A marker."
Fundamentally, John never wanted to go back to the assassin life.
“How was life on the other side?”
“It was good, Addy.
Far better than I deserved”
After he’s dragged back in,
“You wanted me back.
I’m back.”
the rules consistently make him act against his best interests.
For every bullet he fires
and every assassin he kills,
he is dooming himself to more and more extreme consequences.
"No one gets out and comes back
without repercussions."
He feels he has no choice but to try and kill his way
to a normal life again,
as antithetical as that may seem.
"Your descent into hell begins here, Mr. Wick.
Earl will guide you.
Do be careful on your way down.
Oh, and remember, you owe me."
"You don’t want me owing you."
Yet while Jon believes he has no agency due to the ways of this world,
"I’m not that guy anymore."
"You are always that guy, John."
there's an interesting discussion to be had about how conscious he is
of his own decisions and motivations.
"There’s a part of John Wick that's-
that's like he doesn't-he doesn’t care about the consequences in a way
because he’ll deal with it when he deals with it,"
Whether John is fighting for revenge or fighting for his life,
“It’s personal."
"It’s very personal, but John Wick kind of gets John in trouble."
Reeves’ take, then, is that John is reactive, not proactive,
and is his own worst enemy,
which implies that John does have a choice in all of this.
“Jonathan, just walk away.”
It's just that the course of action he chooses is bad for him.
"You should have just run away.
You know what the Camorra will do to you."
John is reacting to things
exactly as he has been conditioned to by his assassin training.
"Whoever comes, whoever it is, I’ll kill them.
I’ll kill them all."
It would be better for his health,
and the health of everyone around him,
to diffuse the situation by removing himself from the equation entirely.
But in light of Reeves' comments,
a deeper reading of his psychology could be that he has re-awoken
the demon inside himself,
and subconsciously he's driven by the fact that he enjoys what he does.
"You dip so much as a pinky back into this pond,
you may well find something reaches out
and drags you back into its depth."
Some fans have dubbed John Wick an ‘artist of death.'
And he's undoubtedly the best there is at finding novel ways to kill people.
"I once saw him kill three men in a bar, with a pencil."
He might tell himself he is doing all this for the memory of his wife,
or simply to survive, or because he has to.
But maybe, deep down, he’s addicted
to the violence and death.
“I think you are addicted to it.
To the vengeance.”
John Wick could never truly live a normal life.
"The man.
The myth.
The legend.
You’re not very good at retiring."
"I’m working on it."
The theme of rules and consequences extends beyond the fiction
of the John Wick franchise to the creation and form of the movies.
The direction, cinematography, and action choreography are
all governed by a strict code of rules.
“I mean the director wants to make it immersive,
wants to make it like a performance,
so there’s really long takes.”
Director Chad Stahelski and his creative team
film every action scene in long, extended takes that show
the insanely precise fight choreography in all its wonderful detail.
Stahelski never chooses quick cuts,
obfuscates his action, or resorts to
a shaky cam sequence to fake excitement or intensity.
Instead, he trains his actors for months before they shoot,
working on choreography, and the grueling rehearsal period means on set,
every sequence is captured in as few takes as possible.
Every gunshot, every punch, and every kick matters.
The Wick movies feel like controlled chaos.
The camera work is so precise that
the audience always knows what is happening,
why it is happening, and who it is happening to.
Stahelski also cast one of the world's most physically dedicated actors
to lead the franchise.
Stahelski was Keanu Reeves' stunt double for The Matrix movies,
so their relationship goes back a long way, and it’s easy to see why
the two men work so well together.
One of the main selling points of the Wick movies is Keanu’s commitment
to doing as much of the action as possible.
“I do probably like 85-90% of the action.”
It means the audience always sees
it is recognizably him in the action scenes and not a stunt performer.
Videos of Keanu practicing on a gun range demonstrating his adeptness
with firearms went viral, and you can watch footage of him learning
the complicated fight choreography
with martial arts teachers.
It’s been said that Keanu will train for eight hours a day for six months
in preparation for a Wick movie, which is far more than the
customary eight weeks that most actors prep for a blockbuster.
Stahelski and Reeves are the ultimate action movie professionals
because they follow the rules they set up for themselves,
approaching the John Wick movies with the same level of commitment
and insane precision as the assassins in their movies.
If they ever broke their rules,
the consequence would be a film that just didn't feel like the
trademark controlled chaos that defines John Wick.
"Best way to fake being good is just to be good.
And that takes sweat, blood, and tears.
It's a level of commitment that is not normal."
Fusion of form and content is the gold standard of creative work,
and by embodying the discipline that defines John Wick himself,
these movies stand apart from most of their action movie contemporaries.
We might extract some professional advice from their example, too.
Evidently, diligently sticking to a well-chosen set of rules lays the
foundation for career excellence
Yet the moral of the John Wick story lies in the personal implications
that allegiance to rules and consequences has on a human being.
What good does it do him
to be the greatest assassin the world has ever known,
if he’s constantly fighting for his life and desperately trying
to evade the dreaded consequences of his actions?
We can learn from John that,
while a code of laws will help in our pursuit of excellence,
we should first step back and make sure we’re pursuing
something worth being excellent at.
It may feel all-important to rise to the top of your field and chase machine
-like technical perfection,
but if what you do has a negative impact on the world,
then isn’t it worse to be better at it?
“Now, as I recall, weren't you the one tasked to dole out
the beatings, not receive them?”
“Rusty, I guess.”
This deadly killer is no hero.
He’s a warning to ambitious workaholics everywhere.
An inhuman existence of cold rigidity and regularity will destroy you
from the inside and from without, no matter how great you are at your job.
“This life follows you.
It clings to you,
infecting everyone who comes close to you.”
What John Wick needs is a little bigger-picture perspective,
to stop being reactive, and feeling like he has no choice
because we’re not robots.
We always have a choice.
Rules were made to be adapted
and updated, according to context.
And if the rulebook makes no sense,
then we shouldn’t be in that particular game at all.
“Have you returned to the fold?”
“Just visiting.”
This video is brought to you by
Audible, the best audio book service out there with the widest selection
of audio books, period.
One great audio book you can check out right now is "Educated."
Tara Westover's memoir describes her incredible journey from being raised
by survivalist parents who didn't believe in formal education to
discovering a passion for learning that led her to Harvard and Cambridge.
Audible members get to choose three titles every month,
one audio book and two Audible originals
that you can't find anywhere else.
And your unused credits roll over to the next month.
Plus you own your audio books, so you can go back and listen anytime,
even if you cancel your membership.
So start growing your digital library with Audible today.
Just click the link in the description below, Audible.com/THETAKE
or text "THETAKE: to 500-500 to sign up now.