I think it depends on how the actor prepares. Keanu is known to be super involved in his stunts and has done a fair amount of actual firearms training. I believe he’s competed in some amateur events.
I would absolutely expect him to be significantly more skilled with firearms than the average person.
And even if he wasn’t John Wick, I just cannot imagine the justification for fucking with Keanu Reeves.
Fight choreography only works against someone who also knows the choreography. Then it’ll play out according to the choreography.
The real world doesn’t work that way.
Keanu does have extensive general firearms training though. So if he had a gun you’d likely be in trouble. I don’t know his general martial arts training.
If I had a gun I’d likely be in trouble too. And I don’t even need general firearms training for that!
I read this in The Soldier’s voice. “Sun tzu said that!”
So if he had a gun you’d likely be in trouble
Not if you don’t mess with his dog
So if he had a gun you’d likely be in trouble.
Lol, you’re not wrong
Coming at it backwards
Jackie Chan was a martial artist who fought (on screen) his way into the film industry. Hard to imagine Keanu Reeves becoming a martial artist anywhere near the caliber of Jackie Chan’s
There are obviously those like Gary Oldman, who, unless you paid close attention to the credits list, won’t be able to tell that he worked in the Fifth Element, Harry Potter, and the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy. Did he learn new skills for the movies he worked in? Most likely yes. Does he retain those skills? Only as much as he practices them or else like in all of us, I’d wager that those skills atrophied away from the moment respective films wrapped up shooting.
If anything, those skills look more like accessories to the critical job of acting on screen.
I think all actors retain their ability to act, yes. What you are likely seeing in a movie however is a stunt performer doing choreographed and well rehearsed moves.
No.
I’m watching Jean Claude Van Damme’s filmography right now. He’s a trained fighter. He was taught to act, but was never really good at it.
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but, Keanu isn’t actually killing all those people.
It’s choreography.
They say walk through this door, lift your left arm to block the punch from this guy, then point your gun that way, duck under the guy charging you from behind and then point the gun that way. He might learn some basic stances but most of his fighting experience is how to LOOK like you punched somebody without actually hurting them.
Ohhh now the whole Rust controversy makes sense. I always thought it was weird that they got upset about 1 person dying when hundreds died for the John Wick movies
IIRC the actors in Matrix did ~6 months of kung fu training, and Keanu did a ton of shooting training for John wick. Of course all the movie stuff is choreographed but it doesn’t mean there’s nothing behind it in all cases.
He’s actually pretty fit and does a lot of stunts himself.
That doesn’t mean he can fight. Sure, he could hold his own against someone like me (also no fight training or experience plus not at all fit) but I wouldn’t want him as a bodyguard.
IIRC, Keanu did some extensive firearms training in connection with John Wick. I’ve seen some footage of him on a training set with mobile targets, and would estimate that he’s better at handling a wide variety of firearms than a fair portion of military personnel are before the first time they see combat. This estimate is based on my own military training on similar courses.
I know the movies are choreographed, but I definitely wouldn’t give someone without extensive training good odds against him, based on footage I’ve seen from his training.
I’ve got nearly a decade of experience in competitive pistol and three-gun matches and I was never by any means competitive. The footage of what he accomplished in his training is impressive and requires a significant amount of practice and skill. Even if what I saw was only the best roll, it was no accident
That doesn’t mean Keanu is good. Perhaps most soldiers are given just enough training to be convincing cannon fodder.
Define “good”. I would say that any professional with dozens of hours of training, that could comfortably overcome any average person is “good”. Those are the people I trained with, and my impression is that Keanu is better than most of them.
It does mean he’s far above the average person (which isn’t saying much, the average person probably has less than an hour of firearms training, and maybe a few hours of martial arts training at most)
No, they have to return their martial arts skills after the movie ends.
These predatory industry contracts are out of control.
If they’re anything like me learning something specific to do a one-off job, they’ll forget about it as soon as it wraps up.
In real life, they don’t drop their guns to “settle it like men”
Watching the various motorcycle touring series that Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman made hints at some of the realities of this intersection between life and acting.
There’s several references to skills that Ewan picked up to make one or other movie and how those skills are now part of “life”.
I do seem to recall that Ewan also pointed out that these skills were incomplete, pretending to be a chef convincingly requires some actual skills, but not decades of background training.
I doubt that it’s substantially any different from learning a new hobby and moving on to the next one and starting again. You don’t forget the first hobby and are likely to use some of it in the next one. Other than being taught by an actual expert, which seems like a potential unexpected perk of acting.
In short, the journey of life is peppered with things you learn, regardless of your chosen profession.
Well you see, it’s called “method acting” because it’s like calling a stateless method in Java (other languages call this a “function”) - the context is maintained for as long as the method is running, and then the scope and context is dropped once the method finishes its execution, and will be garbage collected at some point because it’s no longer useful. Pretty straightforward when you think about it that way.
/s, very obviously
Ah, but it only gets garbage collected once the references to the class are lost. So, if you want to keep your abilities, stay classy!
Keanu Reeves seems to have some level of real gun skill. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xii9_oWQ7HY
But if you shoot him he will die, because in reality you usually die the second someone tries to shoot you. There is no such thing as avoiding gunfire. If the barrel is pointed at you, you are probably dead.
There are three effective methods of avoiding gunfire, in increasing order of efficacy:
3: Be so close to the enemy that you’re on the same end of the muzzle that he is. Now would also be a good time to stick your knife and/or pistol up his nose. (Keanu’s goofy close-in pistol holding stance in the movies is supposed to be a nod to avoiding exactly this sort of thing, given the ridiculous amount of CQB that seems to be inevitable in the setting.)
2: See to it that there is something that is proof against small arms fire between you and the shooter. Furthermore see to it that it stays there, or failing that encourage him to stay where he is until he runs out of bullets.
1: Plug the other guy before he sees you. If you’re a rotten shot, preferably with some manner of artillery or an airstrike.
Note that there is generally a rather wide span of distance between 3 and 2, and also 2 and 1 where you probably don’t want to be standing.
He’s acquired a certain set of skills.
My understanding is that his firearms training and proficiency are quite good.
He did a lot of his own stunts, and did train a bit of BJJ and other martial arts training, but probably doesn’t have enough hours of training for proficiency.
With respect to firearms training, I’d put Tom Cruise near the top.
It’s like any other skill. If you keep it up you’ll remain proficient and if you don’t it’ll eventually fade away.
