The Kitchen - Queens of Crime

Violent crime drama.

Set in 1978, 3 wives of Irish mobsters take over after their husbands are imprisoned for armed robbery. After a weak start the movie progresses at a better pace although I couldn't help thinking Melissa McCarthy was badly cast and her rise to power was all too easy.

The movie made me think of 'Widows', which I didn't enjoy much either. The whole movie is pro extortion, murder, and corruption in the manner of Scorsese but not really made in a way that can be compared.

Probably not one to watch.

"The Kitchen" seemingly sunk without a trace upon its release back in 2019, despite being an adaptation of a comic book and staring two comedy talents and the always wonderful Elisabeth Moss. Watching it now, it's easy to see why it couldn't connect.

When their low-level Irish mob husbands are sent to prison for a stick up job, three women, Kathy (Melissa McCarthy), Ruby (Tiffany Haddish) and Claire (Elisabeth Moss) short of money but with some connections, decide to step in and fill the gap. Because they actually provide the services that their husbands long since stopped delivering, they are very successful soon decide to take control of the whole of Hell's Kitchen, which draws the anger of the rest of the Irish families.

The immediate problem, and "The Kitchen" biggest failing for me was that I'm not sure what it was supposed to be. It doesn't help that I wasn't sure going in that it wasn't a comedy, as it a) sounds like a premise for a comedy and b) casts two comedic stars as two of its leads, but watching it you soon get that it isn't. So then you're left with a story about these characters coming up in organised crime, a story that's been well covered by other films before, but here, one where I never had any idea of the scale of the enterprise. They seemed initially to just be collecting from a couple of stores, but then it just seems to get bigger and more successful without ever showing us how, or what, they had to overcome to do so. And then it ends without ever reaching a conclusion. From a storyline point of view, it's a mess.

The performances are fine, I've not enjoyed all of McCarthy's comedic films, but she's probably the standout here. It's just that it's in a film that doesn't really have a story to tell.

Although I cannot fault the excellent performances of Melissa, Tiffany, or Elisabeth, who all do justice to characters that are way too complicated, the film itself left a lot to be desired. First of all the situations seemed so totally unlikely that it was hard to swallow the overall plot. Another thing that I found irritating was that there ended up being no one I felt like rooting for, and I do mean no one. Overall, not a complete waste of time, but certainly not very memorable.

I hadn't heard of this movie before I watched it, but I was interested because of the 70's NYC setting and I'm a fan of the leading actresses. It's not perfect, but I really enjoyed it. I liked the story line of these women taking care of business while their husbands are away in a time period when that wasn't expected. There are a lot of dead bodies and murders, but it's a mob movie, so that's expected. I thought parts of the plot twist toward the end were a little anticlimactic, but otherwise a good movie. Excellent song choices, also.

Competently made - with believable performances from Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, Elisabeth Moss, and the rest of its cast - but 'The Kitchen' suffers from a mediocre, paint-by-numbers script that wastes the full potential of the story.