![]() Leitch proves he’s got style to burn, but substance and soul are a lot harder to come by. Pitt, alongside good actors such as Brian Tyree Henry, Michael Shannon, and others, works awfully hard to mimic the effortless cool of a Pulp Fiction, but even the fight scenes come across as derivative. ![]() Indeed, Bullet Train feels like a calculated study of the Tarantino/Ritchie formula, bringing together an oh-so-colorful collection of underworld operatives who are all riding the same train, the quippy dialogue flying as frenetically as the bullets. And to his credit, Leitch escapes that pigeonhole … only to get trapped in another. Reuniting with Brad Pitt, whom he first worked with on Fight Club serving as his stunt double, director David Leitch seemed to view Bullet Train as a way to break out of the Wick-ian straitjacket. Turns out, duplicating the Wick magic is just as hard for these guys as it is for everyone else - and their attempts to branch out into new terrain has been equally fraught. Not bad for some stunt guys with wild ideas.īut which of the non- Wick films is the best? With Violent Night (which is produced by Leitch) now out in theaters, we take a look at the movies this trio have written, directed, or produced away from the Wick Cinematic Universe. A lot of these films have the feel of a John Wick movie but, as you’ll see below, rarely the same spark. Kolstad wrote the next two John Wick movies Stahelski directed them as well (and the upcoming fourth film), while Leitch moved onto a Wick-less (but very Wick-inspired) universe, directing big-budget Hollywood films. (Netflix basically can’t stop churning out copycats.) But the franchise has been perhaps most intriguingly the launch point for the three primary people behind the first film (and, to varying degrees, the sequels): writer Derek Kolstad and co-directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch (who was uncredited on the first film and, also, no relation). ![]() Once you did, though, two things were clear: There were going to be a lot more John Wick movies coming, and there were going to be a whole lot of movies trying to be John Wick.įinding the next John Wick has been a cottage Hollywood industry for nearly a decade now, to little success. It remains the lowest-grossing film in the franchise, the sort of movie that looked like a million other actioners until you actually saw it. This article has been updated to include Violent Night. ![]() Photo-Illustration: Vulture Photos by Universal Pictures/YouTube and Zero Media/YouTube ![]()
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