Vigilance Elite/YouTubeIf you’re going to be playing a character who can muster up the strength and energy for that one-man nightclub siege, and the subsequent pickle of a price on your head put out to every assassin in the world, you better believe you’ve got to train with the best.
So, as Keanu Reeves prepares for the release of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, it makes perfect sense for the actor to have enlisted the help of actual real life Navy SEALs to hone his skills.
You can see why he’d need to, given the most recent instalment’s action sequences:
The third part of the neo-noir franchise sees the legendary hit man forced to fight his way out of New York – with the help of a hit woman played by Halle Berry, of course – when a $14 million contract on his life makes him the target of the world’s top assassins.
That’s what you get for knocking off Santino D’Antonio in the Continental, I guess.
Laurence Fishburne is returning as the Bowery King and Common as Cassian, with Ruby Rose also set to step back into the murky world as Ares.
According to Reeves, the film’s title was taken from a 4th century Roman military quote ‘Si vis pacem, para bellum’.
It translate thus:
If you want peace, prepare for war.
So, prepare for war with the SEALs the Beirut-born 54-year-old Matrix actor absolutely did. Pix or it didn’t happen?
Here’s a really, really badass video:
The video shows Reeves practising his shooting stance with former Navy SEAL and CIA contractor, Shawn Ryand, who now owns the tactical training company, Vigilance Elite.
Reeves shadows Ryan almost perfectly as they play out how a Navy SEAL would ‘make entry’ into a room containing risk and ‘clear out’ – in other words, check there’s no one in there trying to assassinate John Wick or his dog.
Director Chad Stahelski and screenplay writer Derek Kolstad both returned to write the third instalment after the success of the first two.
Stahelski told Entertainment Weekly Chapter 3 will have the highest death count of any of the three films so far, too, so Keanu will be putting his newfound skills to good use.
For the record, John killed 128 people in Chapter 2 and 84 in the first movie, so we can only imagine how many people are going to pop their clogs in the latest edition. Whether the weapon of choice will be a pencil in a bar or not remains to be seen.
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum is scheduled for release on May 17.
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A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.