#tattooooooos

If you haven't seen the John Wick movies yet, I highly recommend them. At their core, they're action/revenge movies, which I assume you're cool with if you're reading/enjoying FFA. But these movies are so much more than your typical action film. For one thing, there's actual worldbuilding there, as you can see from FFA. I might flesh out elements of the 'verse to suit my story, but the core elements - the Continental, the High Table, the gold coins and silver markers, the bounty hunter contracts - that's all in the movies. There's a lot of atmosphere and setting that's just so Gold, which I'm helpless to get across in the story because those are two weak points in my writing.

The other great thing about the 'verse is that there are no good guys. You've got your clear protagonist, the one you're rooting for, but he's not good. He's just on his own side. The first movie does an incredible job gradually revealing his character. This is a world where you're either complicit in crimes, or you're helpless to stop them. There are no heroes. It's a refreshing take on the typical action movie where there are very clearly-defined Good Guys and Bad Guys.

Finally, the last thing that really stands out to me about these movies is the choreography. It's smooth, it's realistic, and it's efficient. There are no scenes where the protagonist is surrounded by bad guys who inexplicably fight him one-on-one with fancy roundhouse kicks. John Wick is outnumbered and gets the crap kicked out of him regularly, and the damage shows. The fights are brutal and visceral, without getting overly graphic or gory (mostly). And yeah, they get ridiculous sometimes, but it's in a way that's fun.