THE KITCHEN

I lightly had THE KITCHEN on my radar, thought it was going to be a female driven mob comedy, mainly because of the casting of Melissa McCarthy and Tiffany Haddish who seemed like they could be comedy gold together.  But also, I felt the posters and advertising gave me a Charlie’s Angels feeling rather than The Sopranos.

The set up of the movie happens quickly, in a comedy this is a good thing, in a gritty crime drama, you want more texture and details. I felt I needed to live longer with these women before I believed they can suddenly take over Hell’s Kitchen.  

Kathy (McCarthy), Ruby ( Haddish) and Claire (Elisabeth Moss), are all married to Irish mobsters who are rounded up and sent to prison by the FBI.

Kathy has two kids and a loving relationship with her husband (Brian d’Arcy James). 

Ruby and her husband (James Badge Dale ) are not in the best place, but when you stick your neck out and marry outside your race in a place like this, you’d damn well better stick by the decision. 

Claire’s husband (Jeremy Bobb) is a vicious abuser. If she had any place else to go she would have been left him.

These men’s main “job” has been collecting protection payments in the neighborhood and wreaking violent revenge on those who didn’t comply. The only problem being, when a “customer” actually needs protecting these guys are no where to be found.

After being told the Irish Mob wasn’t going to be of much help during their husband’s incarcerations; and realizing their husbands had been pretty lousy at gaining loyalty from the neighborhood; the women band together and decide they can not only do their husband’s jobs, but do it better.

Because the leads are all female in a male driven genre, I wanted to like it. Especially after reading an interview with the writer/director Andrea Berloff (screen writer of Straight Outta Compton) she really fell in love with adapting This Vertigo comic book by Ollie Masters and Ming Doyle (who were on set during the entire shoot), so much so, she campaigned to have it be her directorial debut. And it has so many great things going for it – Berloff lived in Hell’s Kitchen for a number of years; the movie was shot in NY; women in power in a dangerous profession is a draw. Yet it’s very much lacking on so many levels.  The tone is all over the place. It never establishes itself as a true crime drama until it gets gory with violence that seems to come out of nowhere. Typically, I enjoy mixed genres, when the blends creates magic, but this created a messiness, it didn’t know how to clean up.

McCarthy and Haddish are good playing straight roles; but they are so far below Elisabeth Moss’s abilities, it created an unevenness that is unintentionally laughable.

There’s other issues with plot and pacing… but let’s remember, there are plenty of male directors who didn’t hit it out of the park on their first film.  We just put so much more pressure on women directors because they aren’t given as many opportunities, so we make it seem like they all have to be Patty Jenkins or Kathryn Bigelow, which simply isn’t fair.

T&T LAMB rating: 2.5 outta 5