Las reinas del crimen

This film tells the story of three women who pick up their husband's job to run the neighbourhood.

There is a bit of comedy, and there is a bit of gangster in the story. However, there is not enough of both of these elements. They try to please two crowds, but end up pleasing neither. Unfortunately, the film doesn't quit work for me.

Side note, I did not know that this film was based on a DC Vertigo comic book series. I wanted to see this because of the sheer star power in the film. Elisabeth Moss is steadily growing rightfully because of her recent role in A Handmaid's Tale. Tiffany Haddish has boomed in comedic roles recently. While Melissa McCarthy has been on the scene for a while and been in some really bad films, she has talent as evidenced in Can You Ever Forgive Me? Unfortunately, The Kitchen does not really live up to what it could have been.

The film is about three wives that come together when their mobster husbands are put in prison for three years. The women need to make a living so they start taking over the crime scene in NYC (particularly the Hell's Kitchen area) and start getting money from local businesses that they shake down, while butting heads with rival mobsters. They trio soon see an unprecedented rise in status, respect, and wealth but with that comes a great price as they make a lot of enemies.

Firstly, all three actresses are great in this. This is the strongest Tiffany Haddish performance to date as we've rarely seen her in a serious element. The writing in this film is messy, uneven, and somewhat bland. Its also hard to root for the characters. Sure, they have been put down in their relationships but they are full fledged criminals and murderers, are we meant to want them to succeed? After a while you just go through the motions and realize that what we see could have been a lot better and more engaging.

I feel like Widows does a similar story way better than The Kitchen ever could have. Its also too on the nose that this is about women coming out of the shadows of men and dropping ball jokes along the way. You can have strong female characters without having to make the gender statements. Overall, messy writing is the real downfall in a film that could have and should have offered a lot more for its viewers.

5/10

"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.

This movie couldn't make up it's mind what kind of a movie it wanted to be (Gritty Crime Drama, Female Empowerment Vehicle, Action Adventure Ride, Anti-Hero Saga). One one hand it had a high power primary cast with an equally stellar supporting cast, on the other hand it was loosely based on a DC comic series. The acting was passionate and well articulated, yet the writing was muddled, the premise kept shifting and the resolve was unfulfilling. The acting was good but rather drowned out by the movie's lack of focus. I give this film a 6 (fair) out of 10. {Crime Drama}

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.