Widows

This film version is based on the ITV series from 1983 that was written by Lynda La Plante.

In Chicago, Harry Rawlings (Liam Neeson) heist has gone wrong. His gang is killed and he is burned to a cinder when stealing two million dollars from a ruthless gangster Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry) who is also running for political office. He is running against smarmy upstart Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell) who is corrupt just like his father Tom Mulligan (Robert Duvall) who is stepping down from politics due to ill health.

Jamal and his brother Jatemme Manning (Daniel Kaluuya) put pressure on Harry's widow Veronica (Viola Davis) to liquidate all her assets and pay them back.

Harry has left behind a notebook with plans for his next job. Veronica teams up with the other widows from her late husband's gang to pull off the heist and pay off the Mannings. The Mannings are after the notebook as well.

Steve McQueen has gone for a muscular reworking set in Chicago but it also becomes flabby with too many right on messages ranging from political corruption, female exploitation to a racist cop needlessly killing a young black man. The political angle was overkill and got in the way of the main story, at times making the widows secondary characters in their own movie.

Having seen the original series of Widows when it was broadcast. It was a trailblazer, a heist film featuring women and written by a woman with a big plot twist. The remake maintains the twist but is nowhere as good as the original show.

Standout acting, especially from Viola Davis, cannot save this movie from thematic incoherence. So many themes are touched here-heist movie, loss, race, power politics, sexism, domestic abuse, sex work, etc.-that none seem fully formed. This would be a great novel, miniseries or other long form, but loses cohesion in a standard movie length.

01/24/2019 Immediate viewer immersion is guaranteed. A couple of slow spots, building the storylines foundation, but once that's done, your hooked. I really enjoyed this easy to watch movie, a pleasant change from the standard fare we're forced to watch. Bon Appetit

Could have been a five star, but needed to fill some holes where things were left a bit inconclusive. Check out Erivo in "Bad Times at the El Royale" especially her singing. a. Not much background on where the money to be stolen was acquired; why small denomination cash; why the obvious wall safe behind a painting. How monies moved or disposed of. Especially after the heist how it was handled. b. Too many left hanging bits 'n pieces like disposing of a bunch of bodies. Also, a hospital should do what w/a gunshot victim - report to police who do forensics on bullet; ask questions; tie in w/recent crimes. c. Normally forensics by police should have looked into crime scenes which leave behind plenty of evidence. But maybe the writer/director wasn't interested in making that a realistic part of the story. d. Lots of contingencies like extra vehicles; cleaning up evidence at the end seemed glossed over which was disappointing. e. Not clear how the women finished their pact; how their lives were concluded.

Steve McQueen is known for icy detachment and pretension. Gillian Flynn is known for bombast and snarky genre reversals. It's an unlikely pairing, and it looks like everyone wants to come out to play. The film is packed with Grade-A actors. But what do any of them have to do? True to genre, the film uses bursts of violence to suggest stakes. This is, in theory, a heist movie. But "Widows" wants to be more, and the heist takes a backseat to nearly two hours of swamp. "Widows" wants to insist it's "about something", dragging the audience through empty melodrama and papery political nonsense to arrive a convoluted nothing. Its snail's-pace gaslighting; a beautifully photographed, laughably fragile farce of girl-power that for all if its portentous trappings reduces its characters down to neat tropes. After all, it's a heist movie. But the more these characters talk the more we realize we know nothing about them aside from their victimhood. "Widows" wants to imagine a handful of Carmela Sopranos as avenging ronin who light candles for the dead - virgin wh*res complicit in their husband's crimes and doomed to fulfill their dreadful mission, but the film seems to be all window-dressing. There's nothing behind the curtain to suggest this movie learned much from its obvious model - Mann's "Heat."