JOHN WICK (15)

4 stars

CAST your mind back to turgid Oz-pocalypse thriller The Rover, which had a man protecting his dead dog as its desperately weak punchline. Well what we've got here is the fun version of that scenario, as a retired hitman returns to the fold to massacre the people who murdered his pooch, plus everyone they ever met if they get in his way.

Keanu Reeves stars as the titular John Wick, who we're first introduced to in a very bloodied state, looking like he's close to dying and cradling a mobile phone video of his wife as he does so. In tidy and economic flashbacks we're filled in with the backstory, that his wife has recently died and, as a parting gift, sent him an adorable puppy to remember her by.

We get early indications and clues that John has a dark past, but he's out of whatever that life was and the dog is all he's got now. So when some thugs who earlier harassed him break into his house and kill the dog, it's the trigger for a blitzkrieg of revenge that achieves an almost Kill Bill level of fantastical violence and body-count.

Often a no-holds-barred action movie like this will blast out of the blocks, but instead we get a sustained build up to the first encounter that's almost as much fun as the action itself. It's a tremendous escalation of anticipation as to what exactly he's going to do, with everybody talking of John Wick in reverent and fearful tones, calling him The Boogeyman because they know what he's capable of. Or at least most of them do, except the dog killer who turns out to be the son of a Russian gangster and one-time associate of John Wick. Now he's going after them and they're going after him, and it'll be a miracle if the city is left standing when the dust settles.

As well as developing this hushed myth around John Wick, there's also some brilliantly conceived world-building. Though it's set in New York, the film exists in its own realm of criminals and their cronies, where everyone knows everyone, a code is followed and payment is in gold coins. They even have their own hotel. It's knowingly over the top, and hilarious as a result.

Of course the true selling point is the action, and for once this is a movie that delivers on every ounce of its promise. This is action cinema that knows exactly what it's doing, and while it's not deep and it's not subtle, you'd better believe it's effective. Efficiently brutal fights don't rely on breakneck editing to get their message across, and each one is utterly compelling.

Inspiration seems to have come from Indonesian masterpiece The Raid, judging by the purity and purpose of its action rampage. That also extends to the fight choreography, which is incredibly stylish, dangerously cool, and involves guns, knives, fists and beyond, but mostly guns. Lots and lots of guns.

Shining bright at the centre of it all is Reeves who, at 50, throws himself into it with glee. Even when he's not puncturing multiple brain-pans, his way with a dry one-liner is a joy to behold. The greatest action star of the 90s is back, and he's as awesome as ever.

Director: Chad Stahelski

Running time: 101 mins

LOST RIVER (15)

2 stars

The reason Ryan Gosling has been off our screens for the past two years is because he was busy making his directorial debut with this slippery and ultimately unrewarding indie drama.

Bones (Glasgow actor Iain De Caestecker) lives with his mother (Christina Hendricks) and young brother in a dilapidated house in Lost River, a dead and deserted town, which on the one hand exists in an American heartland crippled by recession.

But it's also a not-quite-real world of magical realism and weirdoes, and Gosling seems to have immersed himself in the films of Malick, Lynch and his recent collaborator Nicolas Winding Refn to patchwork together something that smacks of each them yet never approaches the best of any of them.

With its languid pace and freaky and depressing tone, it's nightmarish and hallucinatory but not compelling enough in its narrative to make it worthwhile, as a whole parade of characters get to take part in the weirdness, but don't quite add anything to the story.

There's some striking imagery but not necessarily a great deal else, unless you happen to buy in to its suffocating oddness.

Director: Ryan Gosling

Running time: 93 mins

GOOD KILL (15)

2 stars

Based on real events, this preachy drama stars Ethan Hawke as a drone pilot who blows up enemy targets in the Middle East from a computer screen inside a shed on a Las Vegas airbase.

The position from his superiors is that it's all above board and necessary, with the film clearly taking its stance against it, but also putting us in deep with those on the "front line", as Hawke and his colleagues suffer the effects of their actions.

He wants back in a real cockpit, but at least he can see his family, though that's not going especially well; he's probably an alcoholic, and struggles to interact with his wife (January Jones) and his kids.

These scenes are both a distraction and a relief from the endless drone explosions, which are quite the thing to watch, the first couple of times at any rate. But we spend so much time in the drone booth and see so many attacks that we become as desensitised as Hawke. Perhaps that's the point.

Director: Andrew Niccol

Running time: 100 mins

FORCE MAJEURE (15)

Director: Ruben Östlund

Running time: 119 mins

3 stars

A Swedish family on a skiing holiday in France get a serious fright when a controlled avalanche seems about to engulf them. Though no one is hurt, the problems begin for them in the aftermath when wife Ebba starts to question the role her husband Tomas played in protecting their children.

This leads to much uncomfortable soul-searching, and there's some real insight on offer as penetrating questions are asked about strength of character and masculinity.

Acting and direction are exemplary, but the issue lies with the film's length and the fact that, since the avalanche occurs 15 minutes in, we have an awful lot of not very much to wade through for the following 100 minutes, meaning we get a bit of repetition and quite a lot of dead air.

Having some room to breathe isn't the worst thing in the world, but that's often more meaningful if the film builds in intensity, and since Force Majeure doesn't really amount to much of consequence in the end, it can feel a bit like wasted effort.