Keanu Reeves’ fans were astounded to see his prowess on the shooting range after a video recently resurfaced of his training for his blockbuster sequel John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum.
In the video, which appears to have originally been shared around the time of that film’s release in May of 2019, Keanu does a run with what was described as a Sig Sauer MPX submachine gun.
The 59-year-old actor astounded a new set of fans with the clip, which shows him making the rounds of an obstacle course and showing nearly flawless marksmanship as he shoots multiple targets while on the move.
Several social media users joked that he ‘wasn’t pretending to be John Wick,’ but instead looked as if he could have been as deadly with a gun as his film character.
The video also featured his costar Halle Berry, 57, who stood behind him and timed his run through the course, after she appeared in her own shooting video at the time.
The clip appears to have starting making the rounds again on social media as fans marked the ninth anniversary of the first John Wick film’s debut in theaters on October 24, 2014.
The video begins with Reeves loading his weapon with Halle holding the timer behind him.
He’s dressed in a gray T-shirt with a tan baseball cap and dark pants, while she wears a black tank top and matching leggings, as well as black arm covers.
Both screen stars cover up with sunglasses and bright orange ear plugs for hearing protection, as the loud noise of the rifle’s fire could easily damage their hearing.
There’s a quick beep as she starts the timer, and then Keanu is off.
He quickly fires two shots into the torso of a white dummy, before turning and again firing at block white stands that are around the height of his imagined enemies.
He appeared to be using the double tap technique, by which he fired a second shot in quick succession after the first, as evidenced by most of the posts having two bullet holes in their torso areas.
The technique involves taking the second shot immediately after the first while the gun sight is still trained on the same spot.
In combat, the two shots would increase the likelihood of killing an enemy.
During the shoot out, Keanu crouched slightly and walked between towers of large truck tires and rusted out cars to shoot the targets, and he could also be seen hiding behind banners to protect himself.
After he took down the last fake bad guy, the women behind him began cheering.
Halle pumped her firsts and shouted that he had run the course is just over 16 seconds, which left everyone visibly impressed.
Social media users were just as impressed with the video as when it was first released, leading to a wave of posts about Reeve’s prowess with a firearm and breathless comparisons to his on-screen character John Wick.
‘Keanu Reeves wasn’t pretending to be John Wick,’ wrote one user who added a shocked emoji after reposting the video.
Another fan joked: ‘It’s been John Wick pretending to be Keanu Reeves this whole time.’
Another person came up with a conspiracy theory to explain Keanu’s firearm skills.
‘People though those movements were only for show? Keanu is John. John just retired to become an actor named Keanu,’ they wrote.
Another person joked that ‘John Wick was never a role it was just a second personality.’
Among the amazed responses to the video were several reposted clips from the John Wick films focusing on how Reeves flicks aside his used magazine when changing it out of his handgun.
The move appeared to help him clear it slightly faster than simply letting gravity pull the magazine to the ground, and added to the fast, non-stop action of the John Wick films’ shootout scenes.
Reeves most recent John Wick film was the critically acclaimed Chapter Four, which was released in March of this year.
The film — the series’ longest at nearly three hours — was a hit with both critics and audiences. It scored an impressive 89 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes from the most prestigious critics surveyed by the site, and it earned an impressive $432 million.
That made it the highest-grossing entry in the series to date, though each entry has had a larger budget, with John Wick: Chapter 4 costing around $100 million to produce, compared to the first film’s modest $20–30 million.
The latest entry seemingly showed Wick meeting his end, though it was often described as ‘ambiguous,’ presumably due to assumptions from fans and critics that the character wouldn’t be allowed to die, which would prevent him from returning for lucrative sequels.
In July, the film’s director, Chad Stahelski, told Empire Magazine that he had originally shot a version of the ending that showed John Wick alive despite seemingly having been shot and having a grave made up for himself, but test audiences rejected that ending, instead preferring the version that only showed Wick’s grave.
