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Written by: Tim Riley

Published: 01 November 2014

JOHN WICK (Rated R)

With stringy long hair and scruffy beard, a lithe and fit Keanu Reeves, nattily dressed in dark suits, looks and acts impressively the part of a ruthless hit man, skilled in dozens of ways of killing and completely without remorse as the titular character in “John Wick.”

As the film opens, there is no indication that John Wick is, in fact, an extremely hard-edged professional assassin who once performed contract killings for Russian mobsters. Five years ago, Wick retired from the business when he found true love.

But for now, he’s mourning the loss of his beloved wife Helen (Bridget Moynahan) to cancer, seen in flashbacks to her dying days in the hospital and to happier times at the beach captured on his cell phone.

Stopping at the local gas station in rural New Jersey, Wick is approached by a few menacing characters who admire his classic 1969 Ford Mustang, with one of them offering to buy the vehicle, an offer that Wick refuses and goes about his business, but not before exchanging a few choice words in Russian to one of the thugs.

Helen’s last gift to Wick, which arrives after her funeral on a bleak rainy day, is a beagle puppy named Daisy that plays an essential role as a lovable companion for the retired assassin, who is oddly enough portrayed as a somewhat empathetic character.

At home, late one night, Wick is ambushed by the Russian thug Iosef (Alfie Allen), with the help of his crew, to steal the Mustang that Wick refused to sell. In the process, Wick is seriously beaten and Daisy is killed, an act so vicious that he is stirred to revenge.

What happens going forward is fairly predictable, but the action is realized with such intensity and originality that “John Wick” is far more brutal and compelling than films of a similar nature, such as the memorable “Death Wish.”

Wick discovers rather quickly that Iosef is not just a garden-variety sociopath, but the son of Viggo Tarasov (Michael Nyqvist), the Russian mob leader for whom Wick once performed contract killings.

That Viggo Tarasov is, in fact, also a vicious sociopath who has mercilessly eliminated his competition to unite warring crime clans under his own umbrella shows that the Iosef did not fall far from the proverbial tree.

However, the petulant, spoiled and unhinged Iosef lacks his father’s instincts to act more rationally and with cautious deliberation.

The senior Tarasov is immediately aware that the beast has been awakened and that big trouble is coming his way.

It doesn’t take much for Wick to return to his old form. Remnants of his past life were buried under cement in his garage. Swinging a sledgehammer, Wick unearths a cache of arms and gold coins that are used as currency in his mysterious underworld.

The hub of the New York underworld is the Continental Hotel, a very stylish establishment that caters only to high-end bad guys. The upscale hotel is a safe house for assassins, where the stern house rule is that murder and other forms of mayhem are forbidden on the property.

Ian McShane has a nice turn as Winston, the hotel proprietor who strictly enforces the rules. The trouble is that Viggo Tarasov has offered a $2 million bounty for the killing of John Wick, an offer that appeals to some of the assassin’s old pals, such as the lethal and beautiful Ms. Perkins (Adrienne Palicki), who just happen to hang out at the Continental.

Reconnecting with old contacts, Wick follows leads that could take him to Iosef. As a result, one of his first stops is the Red Circle, a Russian nightclub where Wick ends up gunning down most of the security staff as he gets very close to his elusive prey.

The nightclub shootout is just the first of many explosive encounters that put Wick closer to his target and eventually to the inevitable showdown with the top Russian mobster.

Violent confrontations occur in parking lots, a church where the corrupt priest hides the mob’s assets, and a Brooklyn warehouse.

“John Wick” benefits from pivotal yet brief roles by accomplished actors such as Willem Dafoe’s Marcus, a crack sniper and former colleague of Wick, who is offered the bounty, and John Leguizamo’s Aurelio, the owner of a chop-shop who warns Iosef of the mistake he made in stealing the Ford Mustang.

Operating from a lean script, Keanu Reeves’s John Wick is a stoic character given to few words, but his message is delivered forcefully by brutal violence.

“John Wick” is a great vehicle for Reeves’ natural style and arguably his best film since action pictures “Speed” and “The Matrix.”

“John Wick,” the high-octane action film, is also lean in its running time, delivering an exciting revenge thriller in an economical yet forceful manner.

Indeed, the brutal violence and killings are off the charts, but “John Wick” is compelling pulp fiction.  

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.

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Written by: Ted Kooser

Published: 26 October 2014

I love a good ghost story, and here’s one about a ghost cat, by John Philip Johnson, who lives in Nebraska, where most ghosts live in the wind and are heard in the upper branches of cedar trees in country cemeteries.

He has an illustrated book of poems, “Stairs Appear in a Hole Outside of Town.”

Bones and Shadows

She kept its bones in a glass case
next to the recliner in the living room,
and sometimes thought she heard
him mewing, like a faint background music;
but if she stopped to listen, it disappeared.
Likewise with a nuzzling around her calves,
she’d reach absent-mindedly to scratch him,
but her fingers found nothing but air.

One day, in the corner of her eye,
slinking by the sofa, there was a shadow.
She glanced over, expecting it to vanish.
But this time it remained.
She looked at it full on. She watched it move.
Low and angular, not quite as catlike
as one might suppose, but still, it was him.

She walked to the door, just like in the old days,
and opened it, and met a whoosh of winter air.
She waited. The bones in the glass case rattled.
Then the cat-shadow darted at her,
through her legs, and slipped outside.
It mingled with the shadows of bare branches,
and leapt at the shadow of a bird.
She looked at the tree, but there was no bird.
Then he blended into the shadow of a bush.
She stood in the threshold, her hands on the door,
the sharp breeze ruffling the faded flowers
of her house dress, and she could feel
her own bones rattling in her body,
her own shadow trying to slip out.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation ( www.poetryfoundation.org ), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright 2013 by John Philip Johnson and reprinted by permission of John Philip Johnson. Introduction copyright 2014 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. They do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

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Written by: Tim Riley

Published: 26 October 2014

Marital infidelity and sexual adventurism, either in concert or separately, are themes more common to the programming on cable networks than network television – at least, insofar as fulfillment of such behavior is manifested in graphic detail.

Showtime, the cable channel that is linked by the same corporate ownership to the CBS Television network, has often explored the boundaries of these themes.

But David Duchovny’s Hank Moody on “Californication,” whose libido seems to have no limits, is no longer alone as a married (or quasi-married) man hooked on gratification.

In a show with the unsubtle title of “The Affair,” Dominic West’s Noah Solloway, a New York City public school teacher and aspiring novelist, who is living way beyond the means of a government worker, is spending the summer at his wealthy in-laws’ oceanfront estate in Montauk, the far end of Long Island’s exclusive Hamptons community.

Noah would have you believe that he is happily married to Helen (Maura Tierney), his college sweetheart, and the mother of their four children.

That’s what he is saying in the first episode, and it sounds plausible as there is little to indicate lingering resentment or dissatisfaction with his faithful spouse.

Families can be complicated. The four kids squabble. Teenage daughter Whitney (Julia Goldani Telles), a rebellious handful, is pushing the boundaries with provocative dress and insisting on ordering exotic coffee drinks.

And yet, it is the very youngest child that seems like an unlikely catalyst for what unfolds.

At a diner in the seaside resort town of Montauk, the Solloway family struggles through ordering their meal while being attended to by waitress Alison Lockhart (Ruth Wilson).

The youngest child chokes on a food item, and what ensues is a focal point of the initial he-said, she-said storytelling.

Well, if you haven’t guessed yet, Noah finds himself attracted to Alison, or is it the other way around?

The provocative, seductive drama of “The Affair” is told separately from the male and female perspectives, using the distinct memory biases of Noah and Alison to both misdirect and intrigue the audience.

The one-hour drama employs an usual format on dividing the first episode into two parts, with Noah first and then Alison giving their perspectives, which can be as mundane as how the other person was dressed on the occasion of the first meeting at the diner to things more meaningful such as which person was the actual aggressor. This split storytelling device continues to be an episodic feature.

Much younger than Noah, Alison is trying to piece her life back together in the wake of a tragedy in which her young son died in an accident.

Meanwhile, her relationship to husband Cole (Joshua Jackson) is seen as either troubled or merely emotionally charged as both parents cope with loss of a child.

Noah is also grappling with imperfect events and situations in his life.

For one, his relationship to his father-in-law, Bruce Butler (John Doman), a successful, prolific novelist, who is nonetheless crude, vulgar and dismissive, is not just strained and resentful, but verging on outright hostility.

On the other hand, aside from the not-so-atypical difficulties of raising independent-minded children, Noah’s family life does not appear to be so chaotic and nerve-wracking, especially when his wife is supportive, that he would veer off into a summer fling with a waitress.

There is nothing to inform the audience about why Noah would even entertain an affair. After all, his marriage to Helen has no signs of having soured or turning musty.

Has Noah becomes bored? Does he lack interest in carnal relations with his spouse? Is Alison the sexual firecracker that has ignited his new-found passion? The viewer is left to wonder.

For Alison, her life with Cole appears more conflicted and complicated.

For one thing, recent tragedy may have altered Alison’s view of marriage, which still has apparent sexual passion but there is a deep void in her soul that is not easily repaired by the presence of a husband who may be emotionally distant.

The most interesting and puzzling facet of “The Affair” is that part of the he-said, she-said dynamic is played out in the course of an ongoing police investigation into a possible crime that is neither revealed nor explained.

At different times in every episode, Noah and Alison are interrogated by a detective regarding recent events, focused mostly on their relationship.

At least in the initial episodes, the adultery lacks the very graphic nature that is more prevalent in many cable shows.

“The Affair” is not so much about the sexual nature of the affair but the psychological ramifications of infidelity.

More to the point, “The Affair” is a mystery, one that may be tricky to unravel because the plot keeps everyone in delicious suspense.

“The Affair” was recently launched on Showtime for a typical season run. It shouldn’t be too tough to catch up on previous episodes with Video on Demand or by other means.

“The Affair” requires chronological viewing; you just can’t jump into the story midstream. Nor would you want to.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.