Essential
Summary
Wick is Pain is one of the best “Making of” documentaries I’ve seen for some time as we explore how John Wick almost never got made and the various challenges it placed on the cast and crew. If you love the John Wick movies and stunts in general this is essential viewing.
Plot: Join Keanu Reeves, director Chad Stahelski, and the extended Wick cast and crew as they go behind the scenes of this billion-dollar franchise that almost never happened.
Review: I’ve been meaning to watch Wick is Pain for months and I found it as one of my in-flight movies coming back from Scotland the other day.
This is an incredibly honest and insightful look into the making of the John Wick franchise featuring interviews with Keanu Reeves, Chad Stahelski, David Leitch, Daniel Bernhardt, Tiger Chen and many more.
We start off hearing about how Keanu, Tiger, David and Chad all worked together on The Matrix films and became good friends over the years.
I had no idea how much of a struggle it was to get the first John Wick made until recently. It seemed to be just sheer force of will (and financing from Eva Longoria) that got the film completed. It was initially going to be much longer focusing a lot on John Wick’s grief, but after a lot of editing they got the tone and story just right and movie magic was made.
Wick is Pain pulls no punches and really goes into the challenges of trying to get a mid-budget film made and the effect it had on friendships and relationships. Chad Stahelski was married to Heidi Moneymaker but they separated while filming the first Wick as Chad admits himself, he was too busy focusing on that; they would end up divorcing during John Wick 2. Chad and David also argued a lot making the first film as they had differing ideas about it, but they remained friends.
It was fascinating to hear how they wanted to try the John Wick action style on the Jason Statham movie, Safe but he wasn’t feeling it brought a lot of his own style to it.
It sounds like Donnie Yen is intimidating to work with and I could tell when I interviewed him last year they he would be very serious about his work (and quite rightly so).
At the end there is talk of a potential fifth movie, but personally I’m happy with how the fourth film ended and I would just leave the franchise alone now… aside from the Donnie Yen spin-off.
Overall, Wick is Pain shows what a labour of love the John Wick movies are with honest interviews and stories from the trenches and if you love stunts and hearing from the performers this is pure gold and a must see.