The John Wick movies are among some of the best action franchises out there, which is mostly due to the franchise’s thrilling, brutal, and creative action. With that, it’s safe to say that John Wick (Keanu Reeves) has killed his fair share of bad guys. In just three movies, Mr. Wick has stacked up an impressively long kill count, that ranks among the largest in cinematic history. Returning to the assassin underworld after the death of his wife and seeking the revenge for his dog’s death, the “baba yaga” quickly demonstrates his deadly skills in gun fu, knife combat, and his impressive driving skills that could almost give Dominic Toretto a run for his money.
As the series goes on, Mr. Wick has shown his enemies and the audience that he can use literally anything as a weapon, like a horse, a book, and even a pencil, a freaking pencil. John Wick: Chapter 4 Promises to deliver even more impressive kills that we can’t wait to see. In the meantime, here are John Wick’s best kills.
John Wick’s skills with firearms are simply unparalleled, constantly popping foes in the head with pistols, assault rifles, and shotguns. But what the John Wick movies do best, is show the “baba yaga” reload, grounding this franchise in realism. There are many moments where we see this, but perhaps the best comes when John Wick is being pursued by D’Antonio’s (Riccardo Scamarcio) men in Rome’s catacombs. In this scene, John picks up his well-placed shotgun and begins pumping D’Antonio’s goons full of lead. At one stage, John comes up against a foe who John attempts to shoot, only to find he is out of ammo, forcing John to charge at his enemy, pushing the shotgun into his chest as John reloads, leading Mr. Wick to blow a hole in the goon’s chest after reloading.
At the beginning of John Wick: Chapter 2, John goes on a mission in search for his car, which Iosef (Alfie Allen) stole from him in the first movie. John soon finds his car at Viggo’s brother Abram Tarasov’s (Peter Stormare) garage, to which John quickly and stealthily takes out guard after guard until he finds his car. After starting up his engine, the rest of Abram’s goons hear the engine roar and begin to chase down John. John revs his engine and begins to drive around Abram’s garage taking out his henchmen.
The most memorable kill comes towards the end of his vehicular rampage, as John hits a goon out of their car, causing John’s engine to give up. The goon uses this to his advantage as he begins to limp away. John’s engine eventually turns on, leading John to reverse towards the goon, before whipping his car around and sending the goon flying into a metal column.
John Wick: Chapter 2 enhanced and deepened the already compelling and intricate world of the John Wick franchise, and added many more unique and deadly assassins. None, however, were more deadly, memorable, or as brutish as the sumo assassin John faced off against in Chapter 2.
When avoiding assassins seeking the hit put on John Wick, the “baba yaga” comes face-to-face with a towering assassin, played by real life sumo wrestler, Yamamotoyama Ryuta. The assassin puts up a good fight, clotheslining John, as well as sending him through a panel of glass. John tries to fend him off, punching, kicking and chopping at his foe, which doesn’t exactly go John’s way. After trying to shoot John, he disarms his foe and begins to shoot at his fellow assassin numerous times. Much to John’s and the audience’s surprise, he doesn’t go down, leading John to cling on to the assassin’s back and shoot him directly through the top of his skull. Seemingly out for the count, as John walks away, the towering foe wakes back up, forcing John, without hesitation, to rapidly turn and headshot his opponent.
John Wick: Chapter 3 is home to one of the best scenes in the entire franchise, as a whole wave of goons tries to claim the bounty on John Wick’s head in a knife shop. Of course, it doesn’t go their way, as John takes out foe after foe by slashing, stabbing, and throwing knives at his enemies in increasingly creative ways. But perhaps the best kill in the scene, is when John throws three consecutive knives at an assassin lying on the floor, piercing his wrist, chest, and his head.
We knew we were expecting horses in John Wick 3 in one way or another, but we weren’t ready for this creative and utterly brutal use of them. Still on the run from assassins seeking his bounty, John runs into a large stable full of horses. John swiftly takes out bad guy after bad guy, but the most memorable kill saw John whack a horse on the rear, forcing the horse to kick one of the assassins in the face with full power twice. Ouch!
By the time John Wick: Chapter 3 rolled around, fans expected some truly unforgettable, brutal, and jaw-dropping kills. However, we were not ready for the kill that kicked off this action-packed sequel. In a deathly rush, John searches for a hollowed out book holding a photo of his wife, some gold coins, a marker, and a bead necklace, that will come in use later. There, however, he is met with the Goliath professional basketball player Boban Marjanovic, who attempts to claim the 40-million dollar bounty on Mr. Wick’s head a little early. Smacking and slamming his head into bookshelves, Marjanovic puts up a deadly fight against John, at least until John uses his book against the giant.
He whacks the assassin in the leg, hand, and throat before lodging the book into the Goliath’s mouth, where John keeps hammering it into the assassin’s jaw, eventually dislodging it. However, John isn’t done with the assassin yet, as he pulls the book from the nearly dead giant, places it onto the table and smacks the assassin’s neck against it, finally killing him. Overkill? Maybe, but it was awesome.
The third movie in the franchise simply doesn’t stop with its brutal and memorable kills, and this kill to wrap up the phenomenal knife shop fight, is by far the most brutal. After having defeated a whole wave of goons, one assassin is left standing. The assassin attempts to strike John with a knife, but John quickly parries his attack and uses the knife against the goon, slowly pushing it towards the assassin’s eye, eventually piercing his eyeball and killing the goon immediately. Yes, this kill is brutal and anything involving eyes seems to make audiences squirm more than anything, yet the camera lingers on a close up of John forcing the knife into the assassins eye, which had theaters screaming.
The main aspect that made John Wick so freaking cool, was his legendary status of “killing four guys in a bar with a pencil”, and since hearing this, we dreamt of seeing John actually kill someone with a pencil. Thankfully, John Wick: Chapter 2 delivered this in all its gory glory.
Avoiding a constant slew of assassins seeking to claim his bounty, John comes across two assassins in a bar, ready to end him. Yet, John rushes in, grabs a pencil, and jabs one of them in the hand and the mouth, before finally lodging the pencil through the assassin’s ear. John then swiftly turns his attention to the other, grabbing another pencil, and stabbing the assassin with it. To finish the kill, John holds the pencil against a wall, and throws the assassin into it.
