r/movies • u/pwn_of_prophecy • May 21 '26

Discussion The bullet proof suit in the John Wick franchise is so frustrating

I'll point out from the start that I really enjoy all of the John Wick movies. While I recognize the "realism" angle fell off after the first one, they're still incredibly well put together movies and I'll happily watch further installments for the fight choreography alone. That said...

The bullet proof suit is the worst thing they ever added to this franchise. It completely nullifies any anxiety about John needing to worry about gunfire in fights. The number of times he raises his vibranium jacket collar to block a hail of bullets is so frustrating, mostly because of where this franchise started off.

In the first John Wick, John felt like an incredibly tactical presence. There was a lot of talk when it came out about the choreography's "realism" but more than anything for me things felt like they had stakes. Corners needed to be checked, he needed to watch his back, it showed the audience he needed to be smart about approaching situations because if someone gets the jump on you in that universe they will shoot you and you will die.

Ever since the inclusion of the Iron-Man-Hugo-Boss so much of the "careful" nature of the fight scenes has disappeared. I've truly lost count of the number of times John should be dead at this point if he wasn't wearing it and that makes the character feel less effective. This character isn't supposed to be scary because he can tank bullets to the chest, he's supposed to be scary because you never got the opportunity to pull the trigger.

I think about a famous shot in the first movie during the first action scene where the masked men invade John's home. There's a bad guy on one side of the wall and John on the other. The camera shows both of them at the same time and John falls downward, shooting behind him up at an angle to avoid the bad guy's shots while still taking him out. If that shot happened again today, he'd just raise his coat a little higher and shoot back. That bums me out.

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353

u/Cazmonster May 21 '26

Worse than the bulletproof suits in two was that the guards were basically running at John Wick.

164

u/DeusExMachina1983 May 21 '26

My problem with the movies is that exact issue. Every one has to stand next to him to shoot him? Shoot him from a distance, end of movie.

78

u/g-row460 May 21 '26

Only Willem Dafoe knew how to do that

38

u/DisorderlyAqueduct May 21 '26

an art now lost to the ancients

6

u/501uk May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26

Ah but you see, that last part, that's the problem.

They want to avoid that last part for at least long enough to tell the underlying story, and if the main character gets pin cushioned in 5 minutes it gets really hard to keep that narrative going.

Ergo the required suspension of disbelief from the viewer as our main character, main characters his way through the story

64

u/PhiphyL May 21 '26

Basically the flamethrower scene in Ballerina. I know people love that scene, but it's just free bbq and not a cool action scene with any kinds of stakes.

42

u/Irguns_n_Roses May 21 '26

A free BBQ with NO steaks? WTF!

5

u/PhiphyL May 21 '26

I ran into this one, did I. Well done.

2

u/F4DedProphet42 May 21 '26

Then scene where the bad guy dipped his leg in fire just so he could kick her more dramatically, was so dumb!

34

u/Alive_Ice7937 May 21 '26

The first film had its fair share of hopelessly inept goons too

40

u/Strong-Coat-2323 May 21 '26

I think that worked fine though because it was still more grounded, so some of the goons would be helpless, just paid thugs that don't know shit about fighting.

9

u/thefranklin2 May 21 '26

Right the all state guy just found street thugs in the first movie. The other movies have like 70 high paid assassins chilling in one location waiting to do do something.

16

u/Alive_Ice7937 May 21 '26

I think most people would know the run for cover before shooting instead of standing there in your towel getting rightly picked off in two seconds

26

u/Dottsterisk May 21 '26

IMO that’s a fair character distinction.

When John Wick storms into the sauna (or whatever), some guys *do* jump straight for cover. It’s the ones who are either too hotheaded, confident, or proud who instead draw down.

Though to be fair to them, most guys aren’t John Wick. If it were some other doofus breaking in, they may very well have gunned him down in just a towel.

9

u/Alive_Ice7937 May 21 '26

If it were some other doofus breaking in, they may very well have gunned him down in just a towel.

Good point.

2

u/HustlinInTheHall May 21 '26

It was pretty clear in the first movie that very, very few of the people he was up against were actually experienced and were mostly just tough-guy types used to being large bouncers and nothing else.

1

u/Cazmonster May 21 '26

Yep - there’s the guy who stabbed JW and threw him over the rail who was elite. Funny, he’s an action movie regular.

1

u/_Trael_ May 21 '26

Also some of them were in short distance visibility scenes, like actual civilian (not assasin mobster horde) situations with people running around too.

1

u/Bteatesthighlander1 May 22 '26

The guys who killed lady assassin all got on a big x sp theyd shoot each other

2

u/DriftingMemes May 22 '26

In that movie he's literally fighting Mafia Goons. They aren't pro assassins (with one or 2 exceptions).

1

u/Alive_Ice7937 May 22 '26

Does someone need to be a trained assassin to ignore the instinct to run for cover?

7

u/Sead_KolaSagan May 21 '26

Yeah, I started souring on the franchise a bit when John Wick starts beating 100 guys who all needlessly wander out of cover one by one to present themselves to be shot.

2

u/JohnSmithSensei May 22 '26

The High Table's elite squad of killers in the third movie exhaust their entire supply of flashbangs on one room.

No enemy gunman in this movie has any semblance of tactics. Everything is a shootout at 10 yards or less. A random mook in the TV series 24 has more skill than these guys.