Film Review: 'The Kitchen'
By Owne Gleiberman
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) - When two movie studios 開始する，打ち上げる 事業／計画（する）s built on a suspiciously 類似の 概念 -- it could be asteroid-hitting-the-earth thrillers or animated bug comedies, biopics about Truman Capote 令状ing "In 冷淡な 血" or reboots of classic old monster franchises -- it's いつかs a coincidence and いつかs a 事例／患者 of flat-out imitation (which is the nice word for it).
So I won't 推測する as to which of those two シナリオs 述べるs the 関係 between "The Kitchen," a light-but-not-really-comic 演劇 about a trio of 暴徒 wives in Hell's Kitchen in 1978 who become players in the Irish 暗黒街 after their husbands are nabbed during a 強盗 and sent to the slammer, and "未亡人s," last year's 演劇 about four 犯罪の wives who become masters of their hellbent 運命／宿命 when their professional-どろぼう husbands are chased 負かす／撃墜する during a 強盗 and killed.
"The Kitchen," written and directed by Andrea Berloff, is based on a DC Vertigo comic-調書をとる／予約する miniseries that was published in 2015. "未亡人s," directed by Steve McQueen from a script he co-wrote with Gillian Flynn, was based on a 1983 BBC miniseries. But the タイミング of the two films is の近くに enough to raise an eyebrow.
What I will say is this. "未亡人s," 解放（する）d during awards season, was an emotionally textured and exciting movie, ingeniously plotted and 行為／法令／行動するd (though some critics nitpicked its plausibility), a genre entertainment that rooted its 新たな展開s in a spry sense of character and a 命令（する）ing portrait of the hurly-burly of Chicago street machine politics. It was a genre film that drove on all cylinders, 権利 負かす／撃墜する to the climactic heist that was nothing too 複雑にするd yet all the more breathlessly alive as a result.
反して "The Kitchen," which is 存在 marketed as a summer popcorn m ovie, strings together generically 脅迫してさせるing but often weirdly defanged 暗黒街 状況／情勢s and 血-soaked mobster cliches that we know all too 井戸／弁護士席 from other films and TV shows, though in this 事例／患者 they rarely take on a 納得させるing life of their own.
Watching Kathy Brennan (Melissa McCarthy), a 充てるd mother of two who has 生き残るd by keeping her 長，率いる 負かす／撃墜する, and Ruby O'Carroll (Tiffany Haddish), who married the brother of the 地元の 犯罪の captain but is still 扱う／治療するd like an 部外者, and Claire Walsh (Elisabeth Moss), a violently 乱用d wife, we empathize with their predicaments. Yet as they 掴む の上に their 役割s as 組織するd-罪，犯罪 操作者s, we're in and out of our 関与 with these characters, which is based more on the iconography of their empowerment than on a gripping or authentic story.
Nabbed by the 連邦検察局 during a アルコール飲料-蓄える／店 ピストル強盗, their husbands get sent to 刑務所，拘置所 for three years, and Kathy, Ruby, and Claire are told by the 地元の Irish ギャング（団） that they're "family" and will be 井戸／弁護士席 taken care of. But the first envelope of cash that each of the women receives won't even cover the rent. They're 軍隊d into 罪，犯罪, just as the ヘロインs of "未亡人s" were, by the sheer blunt 経済的な desperation of their circumstances -- though in this 事例／患者 one might 井戸／弁護士席 ask why Little Jackie (Myk Watford), the 地元の boss, is so damn stingy, given that the 暴徒 does tend to look after their own. I guess the idea is that it's the late '70s and the 保護 賄賂s are thin, but mostly it's that Jackie is a villain out of central casting, not just a crook but a vile meanie, the sort of sneering scumbucket who lives in a man's world and doesn't want to look after women or children any more than he has to. (The chivalry of the Italian 暴徒, at least as it's often portrayed in the movies, is markedly absent.)
So how do three '70s housewives turn into gun-こどもing badass 暴徒 femmes? Making that sort of 進化 納得させるing is what gave "未亡人s" its funky 軍隊.
"The Kitchen," on the other 手渡す, is 建設するd in a rickety episodic way that doesn't lend much psychological heft to the women's 変形. Claire, for instance, starts off as a 乱打するd shard of a human 存在, but as soon as Gabriel (Domhnall Gleeson), a shaggy blond Vietnam 退役軍人 and 暴徒 兵士, shows up to 救助（する） her from a dicey 状況／情勢, she gets a quick tutorial in how to slice up a 死体, and before long she's （権力などを）行使するing her 暗殺者's gun with aplomb. It's 現在のd as a 半分-joke, and a romantic one -- the most timid of the women, and the most 乱用d, becomes the most brazen, and 落ちるs in love with a nice cuddly 暗殺者 sociopath. -But really it's just a 風刺漫画 idea, though Moss makes her born-again ferocity palpable.
Kathy and Ruby, 一方／合間, collect 賄賂s from 地元の 商売／仕事s (for a while, they use two of their husbands' ばか者，雇い暴力団 同僚s as enforcers), always with the idea that they're 扱う／治療するing the people who are 支払う／賃金ing them better than the previous 政権 did.
During a 会合 with the 地元の construction 労働者s, they 事実上 turn into union 行動主義者s. But a Hasidic leader one 近隣 away doesn't want to 雇う the Irish, so a 弾丸 to the 長，率いる of his associate 始める，決めるs him straight. The fact that we don't see the 誘発する／引き起こす 存在 pulled, and that the 犠牲者 was 肉親，親類d of a 刑事, is how this movie 作品. The brutality, when it counts, remains mostly off camera, so that "The Kitchen" dramatizes the 重要な question about our ヘロインs -- how 堅い are they? -- in a way that's vivid yet vague.
Once their husbands get 仮釈放（する）d, the film's real villain comes into 焦点（を合わせる）. It's not the 暴徒; it's the 部族の system of male 支配 behind it. The women have 調印するd on with an Italian boss in Brooklyn, played by 法案 （軍の）野営地，陣営 as a 肉親，親類d of goombah Teddy 耐える. (He's just like our ヘロインs: ruthless in a nice way.) And as Kathy starts to t ake 告発（する），告訴（する）／料金 of her 運命, we see, in Melissa McCarthy's ますます 猛烈な／残忍な 業績／成果, a hint of what the movie might have been: the tale of a new 肉親，親類d of feminine mystique -- a methodical fury that 結婚するs the imperatives of a mother to the style of a ギャング（個々）. But that movie needed a better script.
There's a 二塁打 cross you won't see coming, and one that you probably will. There are woman-力／強力にする 激しく揺する chestnuts ("Barracuda," "Gold Dust Woman") on the soundtrack, and a dollop of rah-rah didacticism that makes "The Kitchen" feel, at times, like a gender-flipped remake of a movie that never was. Mostly, though, there's a story that's 機能の in a 暗い／優うつな second-手渡す way. I wish Tiffany Haddish got to do more than glower, and that Margo Martindale had a bigger 役割 as Helen, a dowdy behind-the-scenes 暴徒 queen who's like Livia Soprano played by Mrs. Doubtfire. And I wish Andrea Berloff, who wrote "World 貿易（する） 中心" and co-wrote "Straight Outta Compton" (this is her first time out as a director), portrayed the Hell's Kitchen settings with more juice and flavor and 詳細（に述べる） -- too much of the time, the film seems to be taking place in generic movie Mobville. The women are game, but there's not enough heat in "The Kitchen."
