The Kitchen Review
R: For violence, language throughout and some sexual content
Studios: Warner Bros. Pictures, New Line Cinema, Bron Creative, Michael De Luca Productions, DC Vertigo
Run Time: 1 Hr and 43 Minutes
Director/Screenwriter: Andrea Berloff
Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, Elisabeth Moss, Domhnall Gleeson, James Badge Dale, Brian d'Arcy James, Margo Martindale, Common, Bill Camp
Release Date: August 9, 2019
Based on the Vertigo comic book series from DC Entertainment, the film stars Oscar nominee Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss as three 1978 Hell's Kitchen housewives whose mobster husbands are sent to prison by the FBI. Left with little but a sharp ax to grind, the ladies take the Irish mafia's matters into their own hands -- proving unexpectedly adept at everything from running the rackets to taking out the competition... literally.
Dear Widows,
My deepest apologies for saying your movie was just okay and that I didn’t fall in love with it like everyone else. While I still don’t understand the overflowing praise you received, I do give you the utmost respect now, for out of all the crime dramas featuring a predominantly female cast (pretty much just you and The Kitchen) you are vastly superior and I highly commend you for being a well-crafted film… a well-crafted film with a cohesive script. Flawed, but at least memorable. More memorable than whatever The Kitchen is.
The year is 1978 in the Hell's Kitchen district of NYC. Crime is through the roof as mobsters run rampant controlling the streets. When three Irish mafia members are caught by the police and are given a three year sentence, their wives take matters into their own hands and start running their business.
The other reviews I’ve posted this week (Brian Banks and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark) both feature two recurring words: “derivative” and “contrived”. And I’ll be damned if I don’t use them again to describe The Kitchen.
If you’ve seen any crime or mob film ever, chances are you’ve seen The Kitchen. Even though the synopsis is vastly different from many gangster flicks, the plotted elements are beat for beat like every gangster movie you’ve ever seen where rival gangs assassinate or rough up other gangs, characters tell their goons where they need to hit in order to gain control and power, and the obligatory shot of a rat running on the ground for metaphorical purposes. As far as generic gangster movies go, it’s marginally better than something such as Gotti but far worse than Billy Bathgate, which is as generic as you can go for a gangster flick.
I don’t know much about this film’s source material, but as a movie, the primary issue is that the entire story is gravely underdeveloped to the extent that it’s incomplete. The only constructive moments where first time director Andrea Berloff shows promise is when it builds up to its inciting incident. She establishes her leads decently by showcasing their day-to-day lives and their shared dilemma of not being able to be taken care of once their husbands are busted by cops. It also establishes the city of New York, making it look similar to the ‘70s from a production and costuming standpoint.
Unfortunately, the scenes after the husbands are incarcerated don’t carry enough weight to logically build a fluent narrative. Almost every scene is comprised of underwritten conversations that are often one-sided due to the lack of chemistry between the leads. The dialogue never leads to a definite conclusion, for it’ll jump from one scene to either a nonsensical montage of the women running the mob, an obligatory scene of violence, or one of the mentioned main cliched tropes you’ll find in any gangster movie.
The way that Warner Bros. neglected this was such a clear indicator as to how banal this movie would be. With every generic scene we endure, the thinner the string becomes, making you unable to follow the story as you attempt to detect any cohesiveness at all. I doubt this had any production issues, for its principal photography lasted more than three months, yet it’s constructed like something that was shot in the span of seven days. It doesn’t have the troubled production of a disaster movie like The Snowman where major plot points from its source material couldn’t get filmed due to scheduling conflicts, yet this feels nearly as incomplete as The Snowman narrative-wise.
For The Kitchen being Berloff’s debut, her vision is drowned out by her underdeveloped script. This has been a recurring issue with her features following the critical success of her screenwriting work for Straight Outta Compton. Prior to this, she wrote the screenplay for the forgettable film Sleepless, a remake of a French movie where Jamie Foxx plays a cop whose son is taken. It even hits every plot point of Taken but is even more derivative and undeniably dumb. All of Berloff’s flaws from that film are translated into this and it’s unbearably embarrassing to witness. Just like her previous film, this is rid of any originality and logic, resulting in you just being bored. The film has spurts of humor (which is expected given some of the lead talents’ comedic backgrounds) but it’s never consistent with the drama. The tone is all over the place and you’re unable to tell which moments of comedy are supposed to be funny given how unintentionally laughable a lot of the dialogue is.
Even if you’re going for the cast, there’s nothing of substance to recommend about this at all. You have McCarthy, whose character Martha an Irish woman, yet McCarthy doesn’t even attempt to deliver an accent at all. Tiffany Haddish, who I love and always try to root for, isn’t given the right direction to deliver an impressionable performance, especially with the character arc she has which isn’t even gradual by any means at all. The longer the film goes on for, the more Haddish just becomes her natural self. The only person who does a great job is Elisabeth Moss who is by far the only actresses of today that can turn water into wine seamlessly. She knows the material she’s working with and makes the absolute most of it. Also, Domnhall Gleeson is charming for the time he’s in this because, for once, he’s not portraying an asshole. Unfortunately, the ensemble is so uneven that it all ends up being amateurish.
Too flawed and inconsistent in its narrative, The Kitchen is like a high school junior’s attempt at writing a gangster movie after being influenced by one too many, making this incapable of having an identity of its own. I wish nothing but the best for Berloff in the future, especially with how great of a screenwriter I know she is, but for now this is a very disappointing period that I hope she overcomes.
Rating: 1.5/5 | 32%
