A crime drama that at best is derivative and at worst is inconsequential.
It stars Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, and Elisabeth Moss as three wives living in Hell’s Kitchen in New York in 1978 when their criminal husbands are arrested for armed robbery.
The three women are left to the mercy of their former boss who tells them that he will take care of them while their husbands are away. The women see little to no effort and decide to take matters into their own hands.
After getting rid of their husband’s boss, the women take control of crime in the Kitchen and basically act as the new Irish mob. Now pretty much everyone else is at their mercy including the audience.
Things get complicated when Moss’ character begins an affair with a former associate (Domnhall Gleeson) and the other two think this will bring down their whole operation.
McCarthy, Haddish, and Moss are saddled into material that wastes their talents despite doing what they can to keep the movie from undermining them.
Instead of an engrossing crime drama, we get sloppy dialogue, lazy character motivations, and contrivances that don’t really add up to much and what’s worse, we just don’t care.
This movie really amounts to nothing more than Scorsese lite and it very much recycles his endlessly durable mobster cliches left, right, and center. It’s a bland concoction for 103 minutes.
I took the heat so you can stay out of The Kitchen.
Grade: C-
(Rated R for violence, language throughout and some sexual content.)
