Keanu Reeves found a second life in his career thanks to the John Wick franchise, an over-the-top smorgasbord of violence utilizing gun-fu and various weapon-based action scenes. In the franchise, Reeves plays the тιтular character, a former ᴀssᴀssin for the High Table who finds himself targeted by his former employers for breaking one of their only rules. By John Wick: Chapter 4, the franchise had developed an almost Buster Keaton-styled action format, making some people wonder if anything in the film was realistic.

Reeves worked hard to ensure that he performed many of his own choreographed fight scenes and trained to pull off the moves as best he could. It also helped that director Chad Stahelski is a former stunt double, so he knows what is and isn’t possible for these movies’ giant action sequences, making it one of the most exciting experiences in film today. However, a former Navy SEAL sat down to watch John Wick: Chapter 4 and break down what the movie got right and wrong in its depiction of the fight scenes.

Navy SEAL Expert Calls John Wick 4 Exciting But Inaccurate

DJ Shipley Served 17 Years In The Military

Former Navy SEAL DJ Shipley served 17 years in the military, making him an expert on different fighting skills. This makes him an interesting person to sit down and look at a franchise like John Wick, and he is uniquely trained to know what would work and what is simply movie magic. In a recent video, Shipley sat down to talk about a variety of different action movies, from The Beekeeper and Sicario: Day of the Soldado to Nobody and John Wick: Chapter 4, among others, and talked about what is real and what isn’t in these films’ fight scenes.

He wasn’t as interested in discussing things like the giant John Wick stair fight in Paris; he mainly wanted to break down the closed-quarters fight scenes. Shipley works as a knowledge transfer specialist for a tactical training company, so he knows what does and doesn’t work in fighting situations. In John Wick: Chapter 4, he looks at the scene in the room of mirrors.

“To run into what I would consider the center of a room with 12 adversaries is the worst scenario. Basically, as soon as he made entry, you run down the longest wall, take a right-hand turn, and then keep a wall to one of his shoulders the entire time. I mean, you can do attack-reload. So, I haven’t run the magazine completely dry, and I’m moving from one transition point to other, whole gun-slide-lock-reload, drop it, new mag, and send it back home, and now I have it. I can do the whole thing with essentially one hand.

But for him, he sticks the guy with the blade, does a little John Wick flick, knocks out the mag locks in a new one, and just pretends like this 220-lb literal ninja behind him isn’t going to do anything to disrupt it. And, I know the concept of the movie. It’s a bulletproof suit. The issue is, if you put on a bulletproof suit and I shoot you with 9-mil it’s going to knock you on your a**.

When he cloaks He’ll grab his jacket, cover his face, and then he does like this subtle present, and shoots. But he’s not looking down his sights. He’s not even really picking up a target. He’s really looking this way, and he’s just trying to get rounds down range. You’re not going to hit anything, and you’re shooting precious ammo you clearly don’t have in reserve… There is no just winging it. We’re fighting armies of ᴀssᴀssins inside of apartment buildings. I guess John’s style will work.”

What This Means For John Wick

John Wick Was Never Meant To Be Realistic

Everything this former Navy SEAL said is accurate, and nothing that John Wick does in any of his movies should work in real life. John Wick would likely have died in his first movie more than once, bulletproof suit or not. However, that is not what the John Wick franchise is about. Looking at things that director Chad Stahelski has said, it is clear that he has as much influence from old-school silent comedy films as he does from action flicks.

As Shipley pointed out, many things in John Wick: Chapter 4 are meant to be unrealistic, including the bulletproof suits and shooting blindly, but still hitting targets. He knows that this is all about the excitement of seeing John Wick tearing through villains and coming out beaten and bruised, but still the last man standing. John Wick is a movie that people watch to enjoy the carnage, and Shipley realizes that even though none of the fights are realistic, that isn’t why people love the Keanu Reeves franchise as much as they do.