Film

THINKFREE.

Burn identity

John Wick

Just in case you didn’t get your fill of people being dispatched en masse in Fury, along comes John Wick. The latest Keanu Reeves vehicle is a stunner. It boasts a high body count, and offers cinematic proof that you shouldn’t mess with a man’s best friend. In the film’s opening moments, we learn that the title character (Reeves) has lost his wife, and he’s taking it justifiably hard. Shortly after her death, a little pet carrier arrives at his door with an adorable beagle inside. His wife has given him a gift of companionship from the beyond, and it’s a very sweet moment. The few scenes of Wick and the dog bonding help to build an instant likability for the Wick character. While putting some gas in his sweet Mustang, a young Russian man (Alfie Allen) asks if he can buy the car. Wick groans that it is not for sale. His unwillingness to part with the car results in tragedy as the Russian mob comes to his house, beats him to within inches of death, kills the puppy and takes the car. Well, they’ve messed with the wrong guy. Wicks is a former hired assassin with a bunch of weaponry and gold buried in his floor. He’s known around town as the Boogeyman, and the asshole that stole his car has a father, Viggo (Michael Nyqvist), who once employed Wick. Viggo lived in confidence that Wick was retired and out of the game. Now, his son has killed the Boogeyman’s dog, and all involved, voluntarily or not, are going to face his wrath. That wrath consists of some of the greatest choreographed carnage in recent movie memory. Wick shoots bad guys in a way that evokes a ninja, with a precision that protects

the innocent but anybody in the surroundings with a criminal background is going to die, no matter what they do. The film is co-directed by a couple of stunt guys, David Leitch and Chad Stahelski, making their directorial debuts. Stahelski has actually been a Reeves stunt double many times, including the Matrix films, Constantine by Bob Grimm and Point Break. The familiarity with each other pays off, because the stunt sequences and bgrimm@ choreography are flawless. In the pantheon of newsreview.com action movie directing debuts, this one stands very tall. 4 Reeves is an actor who has taken a lot of shots over the years. True, he can be pretty darned bad in some films, but I think the guy has strong command of himself in front of a camera. There’s a scene in this movie that may very well contain the best acting of his career. Wick doesn’t exactly wear his emotions on his sleeve. He’s a simmering sort, but once pushed to a certain level, he shows some mighty powerful rage, and Reeves is very much up to the task. It’s also clear that Reeves does much of his own stunt work in the film. There’s a lot of rolling around and gun dances. He’s always been a capable action star, and his physical outing here is as impressive as his work in The Matrix. The first one. Screw the sequels. The screenplay adds some nice touches, including an exclusive hotel for assassins run by Ian McShane. The place is like some sort of artist’s loft, except for the fact that the inhabitants paint with blood and brains. When Wick gets his stay violently interrupted, the calm calls from the front desk and fellow criminals sleepily sticking their heads out of doors to see what’s going on are quite funny. Willem Dafoe makes a nice mark in a few scenes as a double-crossing hitman. Adrianne Palicki, the actress who was supposed to be Wonder Woman until NBC saw the pilot and puked, shows action movie chops as another gun-for-hire that can’t be trusted. John Wick is a great-looking movie that mixes in some strong emotions with its awesome set pieces. It’s nice to see Keanu Reeves back in the saddle. Now, with the success of this film, perhaps somebody will finally greenlight Bill and Ted 3. Ω

Fun fact: “Keanu” is a Hawaiian word meaning “cool mountain breeze.”

1

Poor

2

Fair

3

Good

4

Very Good 5

4Fury David Ayer has come up with a genuine horror show in Fury, his take on a World War II tank crew trying to survive in the last days of the war. This film goes full bore in showing the horrors of war, with its very first scene depicting a brutal act of violence that shows Ayer is not playing games. His intentions are to show the effects of war on a group of men who are clinging to the last threads of sanity after years of claustrophobic, blood-soaked terror inside a tank. Brad Pitt leads the crew as Don “Wardaddy” Collier, a grizzled, scarred up individual resorting to arguably insane behavior as he treks across Nazi Germany. When he’s saddled with new recruit Norman (Logan Lerman), his behavior becomes a strange mix of paternal and completely unhinged. Other members of the crew include Boyd “Bible” Swan (Shia LaBeouf), Trini “Gordo” Garcia (Michael Pena) and Grady “Coon-Ass” Travis (Jon Bernthal). Much of the film takes place inside the tank, with a few breaks, most notably a scene when Wardaddy introduces Logan to a nice German girl while he has some eggs. The carnage in the battle scenes is unrelenting. A sequence where a group of U.S. tanks go up against a superior German tank is as harrowing as moviemaking gets. Stay away from this movie if you don’t like onscreen gore. It’s quite vicious right out of the gate and straight through its entire two-hour-plus running time. As action films go, it’s a real winner. As war films go, it’s one to be remembered.

5Gone Girl David Fincher set out to make the nastiest, most poisonous movie about marriages gone bad ever made, and I think he succeeded. Fincher and Gillian Flynn, the author of the novel and screenplay, came up with a toxic cocktail, laced with dark humor, scabrous satire and blistering performances. On the day of his fifth anniversary, Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) returns to his home after sulking at the bar he owns with his sister (a funny Carrie Coon) to discover his wife, Amy (Rosamund Pike), is missing. Nick calls the police and the in-laws, and quickly finds himself sucked up in a media circus that leaves him dazed and confused. His demeanor in public is a strange combination of a malaise and ill-timed smiles. Yeah … he’s a suspect. Through a series of narrated flashbacks, we hear the story of the Flynne marriage from Amy’s perspective, chronicled in her diary. Then, at about the halfway point, the movie goes completely, wonderfully insane. For those unaware of the plot twist, my best advice to you is that you should accept it—even though it’s totally bug nuts—sit back, and enjoy the rest of this messed-up ride. Anybody who goes to this movie thinking they’re going to see something grounded in reality will be setting themselves up for disappointment. Gone Girl is nightmarish fantasy, a hyper-sensationalized “what-if” that thrives on its implausibility. Had this movie tried to stick closer to reality, it would’ve killed too much of the fun. Pike, a British actress perhaps known best for Jack Reacher, gets the role of a lifetime with Amy, and she devours it. Affleck shows what’s been true all along in his career: He’s a fine actor capable of great nuance and a movie star of the highest order.

1The Judge The prospect of Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall sharing a movie together is, in a word, awesome. So what does director David Dobkin, with Downey as producer, do with such an opportunity? He gives us a movie so cliché-ridden that the occasional inspired moments scream out at us like a lost puppy yelping while being swarmed by rabid bats. Downey plays Hank Palmer, one of those typical movie lawyers who gets bad guys sprung free in Chicago and pisses, literally and figuratively, on lawyers trying to put bad men in jail. Just before he gets another baddie off the hook, a call comes in from home. It turns out his mom died while tending to her flowers, so Hank is off to his hometown for the funeral. In that hometown is his lousy dad, Joseph (Duvall), the town judge and a major league prick. Hank hates his dad. Oh boy, oh boy, does he hate him. Joseph hates his son. Gee willikers, does he hate that little son of a bitch. The reasons for their mutual hatred are slowly revealed, and not a one of those reasons comes as a surprise. Hank does the funeral, and is all ready to bolt and go deal with his newly developing divorce when he gets called back to town. Turns out dad’s Cadillac and, consequently, dad are being investigated in a possibly intentional vehicular homicide. You know what this means? Court drama! Downey Jr. and Duvall try their best to make something out of this, but their work is attached to a lame script that wants to be too many kinds of films at once. It’s overstuffed, boring, mawkish crap.

1Ouija Hasbro gets another movie touting one of its products (along with Transformers and Battleship), and this is by far the worst, if that is even possible. Laine and Debbie (Olivia Cooke and Shelley Hennig) have been playing with a Ouija board since they were kids. Debbie plays solo in her house alone when they get older, and winds up dead, hanging herself with a string of plugged in Christmas lights that, mysteriously, don’t unplug under the stress of her weight pulling on them, but we won’t go into that right now. Laine and her friends start playing with the Ouija after Debbie’s death, and they discover that there are spirits living in Debbie’s house, and they had something to do with Debbie’s death. Maybe one of them pulled on the middle of the strand of Christmas lights while she was hanging herself, thus relieving some of the tension and preventing them from becoming unplugged? Oh wait, I’m sorry, I pledged not to go into that. The wannabe scares in the PG-13 outing consist of fake-outs and people behind doors, the kind of stuff you will see coming if you’ve seen, say, one horror movie in your lifetime. If that is in fact true, don’t make this your second one, for you will wind up disappointed.

3Pride Based on the real actions by gay activists to support striking miners in 1984 Great Britain, this is an enjoyable showcase for some fine actors, as well as a fun springboard for good British humor. Sporting a particularly awesome Morrissey haircut, Mark Ashton (Ben Schnetzer) is fronting a gay activist group in England that’s having a hard time getting respected. Mark notices that the miners union is taking a real beating with the public and with the government, and suggests to his group that collecting money for the miners would be a solid publicity ploy with charitable rewards. Young Joe (George MacKay) goes for a walk on his 20th birthday and encounters Mark and his group marching in a gay pride parade. He joins in, eventually hearing of Mark’s plan to support the miners. He decides to eschew his collegiate responsibilities and join the fight. An eventual meeting with the miners brings some great actors into the show. Paddy Considine is terrific as Dai, one of their leaders, a grateful man who stands up for the gay support while many in the town shun their existence. A speech given by Dai at a gay establishment is genuinely warm and rousing, and pretty much sets the tone for the film. Bill Nighy is equally wonderful as Cliff, a meek loner who seems a bit skittish at first but becomes one of the activists’ staunchest supporters. Imelda Staunton delivers as Hefina, a woman who has had just about enough of the useless prejudicial tactics coming from some of her friends. Sure, Pride is a little predictable at times, but the cast is undeniably brilliant. It has the feel of some of the great British comedy-dramas of recent years like The Full Monty and Billy Elliot. Because it’s actually telling a true story, it has a little more heft than those cinematic bonbons.

3St. Vincent Vincent (Bill Murray), a reclusive, crotchety old guy, reluctantly finds himself socially interacting with his new neighbor, Maggie (Melissa McCarthy), and her son, Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher), after her movers break his fence, tree and car. Vincent eventually winds up babysitting Oliver, which leads to them bonding at the racetrack and inside bars, and hanging out with a “lady of the night” (Naomi Watts) much to the eventual chagrin of Maggie. Murray and Lieberher are great together, which allows you to forgive the sometimes schmaltzy direction and writing from Theodore Melfi. Vincent is the meatiest role Murray has gotten in almost a decade, and it’s exciting to see him firing on all cylinders. Recently, I have been complaining about McCarthy getting stuck in mostly insulting slapstick roles. This movie gives her a chance to show off the fact that she can really act, and she makes the most of it. Lieberher is one of those child actors who seems like he’s been acting for 30 years, well beyond the amount of time he has spent on this Earth. Watts takes the pregnant Russian prostitute role and runs with it, getting some good laughs through a wildly overdone accent. They all put this one over the top with their performances. 90 Auto Center Dr.