The Kitchen

We went to see The Kitchen this week. It was a middle of the week matinee. We had the entire auditorium to ourselves. Apparently, this movie is no longer a hot ticket, if it ever was.

The movie stars Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, and Elizabeth Moss as the wives of three members of the Irish mob in Hell's Kitchen. Common plays an FBI agent. The movie takes place in the '70s before much of that area got cleaned up and gentrified. The husbands get busted for an armed robbery and are sent to prison. This leaves the women without any income. The head of the Irish mob promises to take care of them, but his stipend comes up woefully short. Of course, their only solution is to go into competition with the mob.

This movie has three well-known and capable actresses heading the cast. Unfortunately, it had a below-average script. Most of the characters are pretty one dimensional. The women have a way too easy time going into business skimming clients from the Irish mob. Almost instantly, they are taking in thousands of dollars. The mob guys are slow to respond and then with mild threats. 

Before long, the women hook up with an Italian mob boss from Brooklyn. From here, the conflict with the Irish mob escalates. It becomes violent and deadly. There are several gruesome killings and lots of funerals. Despite all the killings, not once are the police around. Apparently, gunfire was a normal sound in Hell's Kitchen apartment buildings. 

My problems with the movie are the unrealistic ease which with the women become successful mobsters and the 180° personality changes of the women. They start as subservient wives and wind up as violent, tough, hardened, murdering mob bosses. This personality change is particularly noticeable in the McCarthy character. She appears to be a loving wife and mother at the start.  

There are a couple of minor surprises in the movie that I won't give away. The end of the movie gives the impression that they all live happily ever after in their new mob life. 

The movie is rated R for violence and language. I rate it a C-. It's OK as a mostly mindless girl-power shoot em up providing you don't have high expectations. 

wjh