Reel Critics: This ‘Wick’ catches fire

Gangsters from Russia are the new default mafia in recent crime thrillers. Denzel Washington in “The Equalizer” and James Gandolfini in “The Drop” battled vicious mobsters transplanted from the old Soviet Union. Keanu Reeves now joins the fray as the fearsome hired assassin “John Wick.”

Wick has retired from the hitman lifestyle as the movie begins. But nasty circumstances force him back into action against his brutal former associates. The result is an ultraviolent revenge fantasy with a mind-numbing body count. The basic plot elements go all the way back to Charles Bronson’s “Death Wish” series. But modern special effects take the carnage to a whole new level.

Gruesome gunplay and bloody murders are now par for the course in this genre. Reeves matches the physical performance of Matt Damon in the “Bourne” movies. Both actors excel at shooting, beating and stabbing their way through an endless parade of bad guys who deserve what they get.

The savage fight scenes clearly place this in hard R-rated territory. But if you’re a fan of realistic, high-adrenaline killing sprees, “John Wick” is your movie.

—John Depko

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‘Birdman’ a dizzying flight

Michael Keaton soars as the “Birdman,” an actor who made his fame and fortune years ago as a superhero and now is desperate to redeem his career on Broadway.

Director Alejandro González Iñárritu (“Babel”) has created a film that, like its main character, defies definition. Like the swooping camerawork and edgy all-drums score, it keeps us off-balance as it swings from surreal comedy to blistering drama and back again.

Riggan Thomson (Keaton) has sunk everything he has, creatively and financially, into a play due to open in a few nights. Backstage (and onstage) it’s a comedy of errors thanks to his costars, the demanding but brilliant Mike (Edward Norton) and the leading lady, Lesley (Naomi Watts), with whom Mike is having an affair.

Riggan’s daughter (Emma Stone) is fresh out of rehab and working as her dad’s assistant, while his friend and lawyer (a wonderfully low-key Zach Galifianakis) tries to bolster the cash flow and the star’s confidence.

Keaton, the original movie “Batman” 20-plus years ago, pours on the charm and pathos here without vanity. His Riggan is plagued by fears that he’s “not an actor, he’s a celebrity,” that he’ll become invisible and that he was a terrible father, husband and lover. His constant conversations with his feathered alter ego make us worry about his grip on reality.

The entire cast is perfect, particularly Norton, Stone (who knew she was capable of such venom?) and Lindsay Duncan as an acid-tongued theater critic.

The ending of “Birdman” continues to puzzle me: Are we meant to take it as an allegory or a despairing reality — or possibly both? I love it when we get to choose for ourselves.

—Susanne Perez

JOHN DEPKO is a retired senior investigator for the Orange County public defender’s office. He lives in Costa Mesa and works as a licensed private investigator. SUSANNE PEREZ lives in Costa Mesa and is an executive assistant for a company in Irvine.