When a bunch of gangsters get put away for terrorizing Hell’s Kitchen in the 1970s, their wives are left up s creek without a p. Oh sure The Family says it will provide for them, but the measly few bucks isn’t even enough to pay the rent. And we’re talking several years of jail time. So Kathy (Melissa McCarthy), Ruby (Tiffany Haddish), and Claire (Elisabeth Moss) grab their own p and conquer s creek.
Okay, that’s a bit reductive because as you can imagine, absolutely no one was thrilled to have the women take things over – not the people paying them, not their rivals, and especially not the leftover male members of their own mob. And I do apologize for having said ‘male member.’
This is exactly the kind of story you want to get behind 1000% and I can still recall seeing production stills from when they were filming and being extra hardcore jazzed about it. But as you can tell by the timing of this review, I didn’t even bother to see it in theatres. And that’s because try as they might, these 3 exceptional ladies can’t make up for a story that just isn’t there. It’s generic and bland and boring. I expected to see some ass kicking and clever one-up-womanship and salty language. But instead it’s just a bunch of hand-wring and counting money into neat little piles. That feeling of empowerment seems to be missing entirely – and so is the point.
I don’t fault anyone in the cast because they’re all churning out great work, but their characters are underdeveloped and at the end of the day, without character investment, the stakes are very low.
The Kitchen is a disappointment. A disappointing disappointment. I only finished watching it because I’d already paid the rental price, and even then I seriously contemplated a “pause” that we just never came back to.
ASSHOLES WATCHING MOVIES 
Naww what a shame! I like the sound of the cast, so it could have been decent if they’d given the story some legs. x
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Ach. I was hoping this would be a good one… scored aff the list.
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That’s too bad. That movie had a lot of talent involved. But I guess even stars can’t bring the goods when something is badly written.
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Ah well, another waste of talent an time.
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Agreed! That is disappointing why do they always equate women’s empowerment with patriarch empowerment around money and power. Sadly it was bound to fail but I love the cast too.
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Yes it’s true – I think the real story is that women wouldn’t just replicate the same sorry system.
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I’m with you 100% on this. I so wanted it to be good.. all females all strong.. dammit.
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Right? Glad I’m not the only one, but I was actually looking forward to it, and then it just failed me.
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That sounds disappointing as the comic was really good. Will still give it a go anyways.
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The comic???
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Yeah, it was based on a comic book by Ollie Masters and Ming Doyle. It was pretty good – probably better than the movie by the sounds of it.
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Bugger … it goes the ‘maybe’ list, which probably means I’ll get to it sometime around 2025 🙂
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Yeah, I had to give it a watch anyway, knowing it was likely disappointing…but it’s hard to make time for this stuff when there’s so much good stuff to discover!
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