The Kitchen is based on the Vertigo comic by Ollie Masters
and Ming Doyle. The movie is sure to bring some comparisons to last year’s
Widows, because the subject matter is similar.
Kathy, Ruby, and Claire all have husbands in the Irish mob
in Hell’s Kitchen in 1978. Kathy’s
husband Jimmy is the most decent of the three, but that’s not saying much. Ruby’s
husband Kevin is awful, constantly cheating on her and letting his mother bad
mouth her. Claire’s husband Rob beats
her. The three husbands head out one
night to rob a place and get busted by the FBI.
They get sent away for three years and despite the new head of the gang
promising to take care of them financially, they are given next to nothing.
The ladies come up with the idea to step in where the gang
has been lacking. They take up the ‘collections’ from the neighborhood. They take money and offer protection, which the
gang had not been doing. This gets them fans in the community, but anger from
the gang. Eventually, they partner up
with the local Italian mobsters and set about eliminating their competition and
rivals.
The movie is directed by Andrea Berloff who had mainly been
a writer up to this point. This is her directorial debut, and she does a decent
job but the movie is very choppy and the tone is uneven. There
are quite a few storylines that interconnect in complicated ways and everything feels a bit rushed. Honestly, this may have been better served as
a Netflix series where the story could have been slowed down and fleshed out a
little bit more. The cast is good, but not everyone seems to be on the same page about what type of movie this is. Some are playing it as a gritty crime drama and some are playing up the silliness as if it's an over-the-top crime noir graphic novel (which is where everyone should have been, in my opinion).
- Melissa McCarthy gives a grim determination to Kathy Brennan. She didn’t want to become a mobster, but she is going to protect her kids and her turf no matter what. She’s quite good in this and seems to have the best grip on what it was trying to be.
- Tiffany Haddish does an interesting job as Ruby shifting from comedy to this intense drama. She’s a little over the top complete with raised eyebrow and lip-sneer, but that actually works well for the character. She’s determined to use what she has to get what she wants, no matter the cost.
- Elisabeth Moss plays Claire as a woman tired of everyone taking advantage of her. Once she decides she’s had enough, she has truly had enough and fully steps into being a gangster and murderer.
- Domhnall Gleeson shows up suddenly halfway through this movie almost out of nowhere as a Vietnam veteran returning from time ‘out west’ in hiding. He comes back once he hears that Claire’s husband has been sent away, and he’s looking to put his skills as a psycho to use for her.
- James Badge Dale (who was in everything like three years ago, but I haven’t seen since then) plays Kevin. He’s a guy more invested in his mother than his wife and doesn’t really care who knows. Brian D’Arcy James as Jimmy spends most of his time complaining that his wife left nothing for him to do and it’s not fair! Jeremy Bobb plays Rob who has zero redeeming qualities.
- Margo Martindale plays Kevin’s mother who is there to badmouth the ladies while getting in good with the Irish mob. She seems to be playing this like it’s all an over-the-top gangster cartoon, which may have been the right take if everyone had been on that same page.
- Common and E.J. Bonilla appear briefly as the FBI agents that takes down the husbands.
Overall, the movie is interesting, but poorly executed. It’s
a shame, because it could have been really well done. It wants the women to feel strong and empowered. While it gets close to that, it never really achieves it because the characters are not especially likeable. It's hard to root for them when they keep making questionable decisions. And now that I’ve
mentioned it, I really do believe it would have been better suited as a series
on Netflix or Amazon. What an age we are
living in with so many options for entertainment, and for storytellers to find
the best medium to tell their story – this one was a misfire. Hang on for the inevitable reboot in several
years.
5 out of 10 – uneven, but had potential. Fine for watching on
a plane!
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