Movie Review: Good Boys

Good Boys *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Gene Stupnitsky.

Written by: Lee Eisenberg & Gene Stupnitsky.

Starring: Jacob Tremblay (Max), Keith L. Williams (Lucas), Brady Noon (Thor), Molly Gordon (Hannah), Midori Francis (Lily), Izaac Wang (Soren), Millie Davis (Brixlee), Josh Caras (Benji), Will Forte (Max's Dad), Mariessa Portelance (Max’s Mom), Lil Rel Howery (Lucas's Dad), Retta (Lucas' Mom), Michaela Watkins (Saleswoman), Christian Darrel Scott (Marcus), Macie Juiles (Taylor), Chance Hurstfield (Atticus), Enid-Raye Adams (Thor’s Mom), Craig Haas (Clerk), Sam Richardson (Officer Sacks), Benita Ha (Soren's Mom), Matt Ellis (Mr. K), Lina Renna (Annabelle).

 

There is an undeniable sweetness to Good Boys – a raunchy comedy featuring three tween boys – that makes the film work. I think we’ve moved beyond the rather cheap ploy that all you need for a comedy to work is to have kids say inappropriate things and hilarity is sure to ensue. The boys in Good Boys really are good. They are in the sixth grade – about the time they start to stop hating girls, and be drawn to them – while at the same time are completely terrified of them, and don’t really even know what they would want to do with girls if they happened to get a girlfriend. It’s also at the age where friendships can start to break down – where diverging interests will mean that sooner or later, you’re going to go in different directions, whether you want to or not. Good Boys is hilarious – the three central performances are all quite good, and they are surrounded by a strong supporting cast. And the movie moves quickly through its 89-minute runtime, and gets out. The film has been called a tween version of Superbad – and that’s a pretty good description.

 

The film follows a trio of boys through a very chaotic couple of days. Max (Jacob Tremblay, from Room, showing off expert comedic chops), Lucas (Keith L. Williams, who pretty much steals the movie, as almost every line delivery is gold) and Thor (Brady Noon, also good) are sixth graders – inseparable, known as the Bean Bag Boys – because, appropriately enough, they spend much of their time on bean bag chairs. Their life is thrown into chaos when one of the popular boys – Soren (Izaac Wang) – invites Max to a party at his house – a kissing party, and Max gets him to extend the invite to Lucas and Thor as well. The object of Max’s sixth grade crush – Brixlee (Millie Davis – Ms. O from Odd Squad for Canadian parents out there, so hopefully they don’t spend the first half of the movie trying to place her like I did) will be there – and Max will die – literally die – if she kisses someone else. But none of the boys know how to kiss – a google takes them to some sites that show them some things that are, shall we say, more advanced than kissing. Thus sets off a sequence of events that involves them destroying Max’s dad drone, having to get a new one, having in their possession the Molly a couple of high school girls (Molly Gordon, wonderful as she was in Booksmart and Midori Francis) were going to take, losing it, having to get more Molly to get a drone, and on and on and on. It’s like a long night of chaos movie – like Superbad or Booksmart – except of course, it almost all happens in the daytime, and they can only use bikes to get anywhere.

 

The lead trio are well matched for each other – not just interchangeable pieces. Max’s interest have moved towards girls, while Lucas isn’t quite ready to give up their nerdier pursuits (like Magic the Gathering cards), and Thor loves to sing – and wants to be in the school musical, which of course makes him a loser in the eyes of the popular kids. And as for all sixth graders, what their peers think of them is everything. In that respect, Lucas – the seemingly least mature of the three, is perhaps the most mature. He doesn’t particularly care what others think of him – he’s going to do the right thing no matter what. Which, of course, gets them into more and more trouble.

 

The movie moves fleetly through its 89-minute runtime – from one comic set piece to another. The three boys do swear – a lot – so much so that even here in Ontario, where ratings are much laxer, the film still got a 18A rating (further proof, in case you need it, that Ratings Boards have no idea what kind of language teenagers already know – Good Boys is probably a lot more accurate in that regard that we would like to admit). The set pieces all work. And beneath them, there is genuine sweetness. Their friendship feels real – they don’t really know that it is headed for failure. And although they are very much interested in girls, as the movie makes clear, they firmly believe in consent. Even if that means gets the consent from a “CPR” dummy. They are, after all, Good Boys.

Movie Review: Pasolini

Pasolini ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Abel Ferrara.

Written by: Maurizio Braucci based on an idea by Abel Ferrara & Nicola Tranquillino.

Starring: Willem Dafoe (Pier Paolo Pasolini), Ninetto Davoli (Epifanio), Riccardo Scamarcio (Ninetto Davoli), Valerio Mastandrea (Nico Naldini), Roberto Zibetti (Carlo), Andrea Bosca (Andrea Fago), Giada Colagrande (Graziella Chiarcossi), Damiano Tamilia (Pino Pelosi), Francesco Siciliano (Furio Colombo), Luca Lionello (Narrator), Salvatore Ruocco (Politician), Adriana Asti (Susanna Pasolini), Maria de Medeiros (Laura Betti). 

 

I cannot help but wonder if I would have been a bigger fan of Abel Ferrara’s Pasolini, if I was more of a fan of its subject – Italian filmmaker/writer/intellectual Pier Paolo Pasolini. I should clarify that I’m not not a fan of Pasolini’s – just that he isn’t a filmmaker I know particularly well – having only seen two of his film – The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964 - one of the best films about Jesus Christ ever made, probably in part because it was able by an atheist, who doesn’t try and undermine Christ’s divinity, but takes the text literally) and Salo: or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975) – his final, and most infamous film – which debuted shortly after his death and has (rightly) earned the reputation of one of the most “extreme” films ever made. I don’t particularly like Salo – I admire the hell out of it, but at a certain point, it is simply a parade of misery, a parade of one extreme scene of humiliation, sexual violence, etc. after another. That was Pasolini’s point after all – and the final moments of that film are brilliant – but I cannot help but wonder if it’s worth going through all of that just to get to those moments.

 

Anyway, back to Ferrara’s film. It is a film about the last day of Pasolini’s life – leading up to his murder, which still has many questions surrounding it, and no one quite knows what to make of it – even if there was someone convicted of it, that person later recanted – and the what really happened is murky at best. In a strange casting choice, Ferrara cast one of his favorite actors – Willem Dafoe – to play Pasolini. Why Pasolini cast an American to play the Italian Pasolini, I don’t know. I also don’t know why it works as well as it does, other than the fact that Dafoe is a great actor. He doesn’t really try and change his accent in the film – where he speaks mostly English. The other actors – mostly Italian – speak in their accented English. When the movie is in Italian, and Dafoe speaks it – he doesn’t speak it well (it’s not Brad Pitt in Inglorious Basterds level Italian – but it’s noticeable even if, like me, you don’t speak Italian). And yet, Dafoe has something that works for Pasolini. He has the air of someone who thinks the thoughts of an intellectual like Pasolini – and can say them, out loud, and sound actually intelligent, and not like a pompous ass. I’m sure Ferrara could have found an Italian actor to play the role if he wanted to – he just clearly didn’t want to.

 

The film drifts – purposefully – from one thing to another. Salo is finished, and will be coming out soon – so Pasolini is doing interviews in support of it – although they are not the kind of hollow, empty interviews with associate with junkets – the movie is barely mentioned. They are going for something deeper here. There are scenes of Pasolini with his friends and family. And there are scenes that Ferrara has filmed that are from the film Pasolini was planning to do next – and never got to make. Pasolini was relatively open about his homosexuality throughout his life – a rarity for that time – and the movie doesn’t shy away from it either, When the murder arrives – and arrive it does – the homosexuality is the reason given (although, of course, that is debatable). Ferrara, or course, doesn’t shy away from showing the violence in that scene – that once again, shows Dafoe suffering on screen.

 

If there’s one thing clear about Abel Ferrara at this point, it’s that he is going to be true to himself no matter what. It’s crazy to think this guy used to make movies in Hollywood – like King of New York (1990) or his very underrated Body Snatchers (1994) – he wouldn’t get close these days. The film is very much an Abel Ferrara film – so if you’re more of a fan of those than I am, you may like it. But I find that it’s a film that didn’t really fulfill its purpose for me. After it was over, I found myself wishing that Ferrara would just go ahead and make the full version of Pasolini’s next film – it was fascinating, and Ferrara is as good as choice as anyone working these days to make it. Otherwise, I wish I had just caught up with a Pasolini film instead – Teorema probably. I think I’ll do that anyway.

Movie Review: The Biggest Little Farm

The Biggest Little Farm ** ½ / *****

Directed by: John Chester.

Written by: John Chester and Mark Monroe.

 

The Biggest Little Farm is a beautiful documentary to look at. Almost all of it takes place on a 240-acre farm in California – one that the owners – director John Chester, and his wife Molly- rehabilitated, and took back to the land itself over the years they’ve owned it. They want to have biodiversity – a farm that lives in harmony with nature, which sounds really good until coyotes eat your chickens, or birds eat your fruit, or snails eat your citrus trees, etc. John was a nature cameraman before buying the farm – and making this movie – and he knows how to frame a shot, how to capture the animals and trees at their prettiest, to make everything look shiny and happy.

 

To be honest, it’s all a little too much to take – a little too much to take seriously. We are led to believe that the Chester’s bought this farm, and did all of this, because they adopted a dog named Todd (it is a beautiful dog) – who would bark all day when they weren’t around, which eventually led to them getting evicted from their apartment. So, of course, they bought a farm, moved Todd to it, stocked it with all sorts of crops and animals, hired a staff, etc. Why not?

 

That all probably sounds cynical – and admittedly it is – but it is something that did eat at me a little bit as I watched the movie. I felt that what Chester – who also narrates the film – was giving the audience was the fairy tale version of this story, not the real one. I’m not so cynical to say that the whole movie was made to promote their farm – but I’m cynical enough to say that if Chester were to make a promotional film about their farm, it wouldn’t look a whole lot different than this film.

 

Still, the film is beautiful to look at, and you’d have to have a heart made of stony to not respond to some of it – whether it’s that dog Todd, or Emma the Pig, or Mr. Greasy the Chicken, etc. The film isn’t all sunshine and roses – it does document the difficult decisions that have to be made. Does John kill the coyote who keeps killing his chicken – if the farm is supposed to mimic real nature, he shouldn’t. But otherwise, he won’t be able to keep raising chickens. When does he do when a mother sheep dies, leaving behind a hungry, lonely baby. What about drought, or too much rain, or California wildfires, etc. The movie puts a sunny face on all this – but only after some struggle.

 

I find now that I don’t have much to say about The Biggest Little Farm. It is a documentary film – and it is probably more or less accurate to what the Chesters went through, even if it’s seen through rose colored glasses. But it also feels like a story more than anything else – a romanticization of farming and getting back to earth, that is probably way more complicated than it was made to seem here. And I wish it was more honest – or at least straight forward – than that. I’d like to know just how much money it cost to get it up and running, and how long it took them to turn a profit, etc. What we end up getting is something you would show to primary school students to get them to learn about farming and biodiversity. And on that level, it’s fine. I just wish it were deeper.

Movie Review: Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love

Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Nick Broomfield.

 

Nick Broomfield’s Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love is not like his other ampersand documentary (Kurt & Courtney and Biggie & Tupac), which dug into the deaths of famous musicians, and found a lot of conspiracy theories – some far more interesting than others. In fact, I ‘m not sure I knew that Broomfield was capable of making a film quite this gentle and thoughtful. He cannot fully resist inserting himself into the film of course – he never can – but it’s far more restrained than any of his other documentaries. His documentary is about the love story between Leonard Cohen and his girlfriend/muse Marianne Ihlen – a Norwegian woman Cohen met and fell in love with as poor, aspiring writer on the Greek island of Hydra in the 1960s – and was involved with for years and years, even after he became a drug and sex fueled rock star, who never met a drug he didn’t take or a woman he didn’t fuck. It many ways it’s a sad film – Marianne never really stopped loving Cohen, or at least, she could never fully escape. When you inspire one of Cohen’s best known songs – So Long Marianne (and Bird on a Wire for that matter) – and when Cohen continued to reference for years. It is about these two people – how Cohen thrived, and how Ihlen suffered – in part because being a muse can be nice, but it’s also lonely – and you don’t exactly get royalties.

 

Broomfield had a personal connection with Ihlen – they were friends, and for a brief time they were “lovers” as he informs us (too much information Nick!) – and he clearly has affection for the now passed Ihlen. The problem with a documentary like this though is that it’s so much easier to make a film about Cohen than it is about Ihlen. And so, much of the runtime is devoted to Cohen’s story – stuff you probably know fairly well. His early novels, before being taking under the wing of Judy Collins, and becoming a musician. How that career took off, how he took many drugs which fueled the chaos on the road, which was always full of women. His performance on the Isle of Wight. The horrible collaboration with Phil Specter – the comeback with Hallelujah. His time in a monastery – and then losing all his money, and having to go back on tour in his 70s because he had no money, etc. The chances are if you wanted to know all this about Leonard Cohen, you probably already did. I will say that as someone who has always liked Cohen’s music – but hasn’t really dug into biography that deeply, some of it was new to me – but a lot of it wasn’t. Still, the film is a treasure trove of archival footage of Cohen – and concert footage. And the film does a good job of putting some of these famous songs into context. I think the film does a good job of painting a portrait of Cohen – of what made him a genius writer, what made him an irresistible ladies man, and what made him more than a little bit of an asshole – who was impossible to be with. It is less perfect at painting a portrait of Ihlen – in large part of course because there isn’t the same kind of footage of her, and by the time Broomfield made the film she was dead (so was Cohen). So Broomfield has to rely on his own memories, and the interviews with those her knew her.

 

But what Broomfield really does succeed in doing in painting a portrait of Hydra in the 1960s – which was a crazy, drug and sex fueled place. When Cohen arrived in the 1960s, it was full of poor, starving artists – and you could live there for next to nothing. It was during this time when Cohen and Ihlen’s love was at its peak. They lived together with her young son Axel. Cohen sat in the son, and wrote his now legendary novel Beautiful Losers in a drug induced haze, with Ihlen supporting him the whole time. It was once he left, that the long, protracted end start. But as Broomfield makes clear, the aftermath of Hydra was felt by a lot of people who were there. The number of people who died after leaving of suicide or drugs is staggering. The children of these relationships often had trouble adjusting to the real world – including Ihlen’s own son, who has spent most of his adult life institutionalized. The film is a fairly damning portrait of the 1960s in general – a time in which some people like Cohen thrived, but many others did not. It is a far cry from the romanticization of the 1960s we see more often than not.

 

And then, in the final act, the film hits some emotional moments I didn’t quite see coming. Even if at the end of the movie, I’m still not entirely sure I know Ihlen – I have a feeling that is the way she wanted it. The film doesn’t go into too many details of her life after she left Hydra and returned to Norway – and that seems appropriate. We can argue if the scenes in the hospital with Marianne are appropriate or not – if they are an invasion of privacy – but it does seem like it wasn’t shot by Broomfield – but by those who knew and loved her, and shared it with him.

 

I do think the film is successful at least making us consider what it must be like to know someone like Leonard Cohen – to love him. Marianne wanted to be with Cohen – but as a friend says, you cannot be with Leonard. And that’s true. And so to love him is only going to end in heartbreak.

Movie Review: The Angry Birds Movie 2

The Angry Birds Movie 2 ** / *****

Directed by: Thurop Van Orman.

Written by: Peter Ackerman and Eyal Podell and Jonathon E. Stewart.

Starring: Jason Sudeikis (Red), Rachel Bloom (Silver), Bill Hader (Leonard), Danny McBride (Bomb), Josh Gad (Chuck), Leslie Jones (Zeta), Peter Dinklage (Mighty Eagle), Awkwafina (Courtney), Sterling K. Brown (Garry),

Tiffany Haddish (Debbie), Maya Rudolph (Matilda), Dove Cameron (Ella), Eugenio Derbez (Glenn), Nicki Minaj (Pinky), Pete Davidson (Jerry), Zach Woods (Carl), Colleen Ballinger (Roxanne), JoJo Siwa (J), David Dobrik (Axel), Lil Rel Howery (Brad Eagleburger), Brooklynn Prince (Zoe), Beck Bennett (Alex), Anthony Padilla (Hal).

 

Even more than the first Angry Birds film, The Angry Birds Movie 2 seems designed specifically with the short attention span of children in mind. The film pretty much lacks any narrative flow as it bongs around at light speed to one random joke after another, one random action set piece after another. None of it really holds together in any meaningful way. Perhaps that would work if any of those set pieces were better – but they aren’t really. The film mainly loud, colorful and incoherent for me – so even if my kids liked it (and then did) I don’t much care. This film actively annoyed me in a way most kids fare doesn’t.

 

The sequel to the 2016 film finds our hero from that one Red (Jason Sudeikis) basking in the afterglow of being the hero, and being loved for the first time. He and his buddies Chuck and Bomb (Josh Gad and Danny McBride) spend their time “protecting” Bird Island from their arch enemies on Pig Island – but it’s basically nothing more than a prank war – no one is really trying to harm anyone. But then the Pigs – led by Leonard (Bill Hader) call for a truce. And that’s because they’ve discovered a third Island – Eagle Island – which is basically a frozen volcano. The leader of the Eagles, Zeta (Leslie Jones) – has been firing ice balls at the Pigs and the Birds – wanting their warmer islands for the Eagles.

 

Perhaps because there was backlash somewhere (I don’t remember seeing any, but who knows) – this movie adds quite a few new characters – almost all of them women, and almost all of them well-cast by talented, funny women who aren’t given much to do. Rachel Blooms fares best as Silver – the engineering genius (and Chuck’s sister) recruited to the team, who immediately clashes with Red (so, you know, they’ll fall in love). Bloom has expert comic timing, and Silver is easily the best thing about the movie (although the fact they didn’t find an excuse for the multi-talented Bloom to sing is inexcusable). Leslie Jones does good enough vocal work as Zeta that I want to see her do more of it – in a role that it far better written than this one is. But hey, she at least gets a lot more to do than the Tiffany Haddish or Awkafina – both of whom are completely wasted.

 

The film seems to have been randomly constructed around a few jokes and action sequences - many don’t really fit together. There’s a whole subplot involving young hatchlings trying to recover some eggs they lost – the films attempt perhaps to give this series a Scrat from Ice Age. It’s so jarring and random whenever we cut to them its distracting (it would be worse if they weren’t so cute, but they are). The film also never finds the right balance between kid and adult humor – there are jokes here that are clearly just for adults, that don’t fit in with the rest of the movie.

 

In general, I was bored and restless throughout the movie. None of it really worked for me – it was all just too chaotic and silly to land in any real way with me. Yes, my kids liked it. My kids have also forced me to watch all three Descendants movie on repeat for the past two weeks though (all of which are WAY better than this movie by the way – at least they trust kids can follow a story). Here, it seems like the film just wanting to keep moving faster and faster, keep the juvenile jokes and fast moving action sequences coming a mile a minute. The film basically exhausted me – and not in a good way.

Classic Movie Review: The Hours and Times (1991)

The Hours and Times (1991) 

Directed by: Christopher Munch.

Written by: Christopher Munch.

Starring: David Angus (Brian Epstein), Ian Hart (John Lennon), Stephanie Pack (Marianne), Robin McDonald (Quinones), Sergio Moreno (Miguel), Unity Grimwood (Mother).

 

The Hours and Times is an example of one of those films that had essentially fallen through the cracks of film history in the years since it came out. This is a film that won prizes at both Sundance and Berlin film festivals, received a lot of praise, and then kind of disappeared. I remember reading about this film in the 1990s – and not being able to find it anywhere. Part of the reason is because of its runtime – it’s only 56 minutes long, so it’s right in that no man’s land between a short and a feature. And part of the reason is because director Christopher Munch has had a spotty career since – he’s only directed 4 films since this, and none have made much of an impression. And so, The Hours and Times remains a fairly unknown film – and while it’s not a masterpiece or anything, it’s a very interesting film.

 

The film is about the trip to Spain that Brian Epstein and John Lennon took to Spain right before The Beatles exploded and became the biggest band in the world. The two couldn’t be any more different then they are – Lennon a working class guy, a womanizer, etc. – and Epstein is more refined, more upper class, and gay. The two of them talk, they “flirt” a little bit, talk about their lives. John says he doesn’t want to have sex with Brian – worries about people thinking they have slept together. Brian tries to talk to John about his marriage – but John doesn’t want to. They go to a gay bar – meet and flirt a little more, with another man there. There is a woman who John invites up to the room - prompting Brian to walk out in a huff. Brian remembers a moment when he took John to his “special” place in England – the roof of his parent’s apartment. The pair sit on the bench together, and Brian tries to get John to agree to come back here 10 years from now.

 

Other than the fact that Epstein and Lennon took this trip together, not much is really known about it. The film may flirt with the idea that these two will sleep together – that there is a sexual connection here, but it’s not really about that. It is a haunting film in many ways – especially late when Brian tries to get John to agree to come back here in 10 years. What neither character knows, but we do – is that in 10 years Epstein will be dead, and The Beatles will be no more – with Lennon also on the clock before his own death. The Hours and Times is the right name for this movie. Even if the film only runs 56 minutes, you feel that time go by – you feel those “hours” as it were. But this is about more than those hours – it is about these two men, their connection, and their lives.

 

The performances are both quite good. Ian Hart would go onto to play Lennon again – in a more traditional biopic Backbeat in 1994, about an early Beatles tour in Germany. He captures the cadence of Lennon’s voice, his mannerisms. You don’t have trouble believing him as Lennon. David Angus hasn’t really stuck with acting – he only has five total acting credits, only two since The Hours and Times – but he really is the heart of the film. While Hart can get away with doing an impression (he goes deeper, but the impression does a lot of work) – but Angus cannot lean on that. Angus is great here as the lonely Epstein – a character who longs for something, who is already looking back on his life, with some regrets, and looking forward with uncertainly.

 

Director Christopher Much didn’t think the film would ever really get distribution – he viewed it a DIY project, perhaps something to help make a name for himself, to get more attention. But the film did get more attention than he thought – part of that is the Beatles angle. But part of that is the sensitivity in which the film was written, directed and acted. The film is in beautiful black and white. He lets the character’s breath, he lets them talk, and the importance is both in what is said, and what is not said. It is a touching and moving film – and even if the film is only 56 minutes, it is the perfect length. Any longer, and the film would feel too stretched out, perhaps too slow. The film was restored this year – played again at Sundance, and got a limited re-release, and is now available on Criterion Channel. For those, like me, who have been interested in seeing this film for years – it’s worth a look.

Movie Review: The Kitchen

The Kitchen ** / *****

Directed by: Andrea Berloff.

Written by: Andrea Berloff based on the comic book series by Ollie Masters and Ming Doyle.

Starring: Melissa McCarthy (Kathy Brennan), Tiffany Haddish (Ruby O'Carroll), Elisabeth Moss (Claire Walsh), Domhnall Gleeson (Gabriel O'Malley), James Badge Dale (Kevin O'Carroll), Brian d'Arcy James (Jimmy Brennan), Jeremy Bobb (Rob Walsh), Margo Martindale (Helen O’Carroll), Bill Camp (Alfonso Coretti), Common (Gary Silvers), E.J. Bonilla (Gonzalo Martinez), Myk Watford (Little Jackie),Wayne Duvall (Larry), Pamela Dunlap (Mary), John Sharian (Duffy), Brian Tarantina (Burns), Will Swenson (Michael Mariano), Annabella Sciorra (Maria Coretti), Bernie McInerney (Paul Hogan), Sharon Washington (Estelle), Matt Helm (Colin), Angus O’Brien (Mark Williams).

 

The Kitchen is a movie that feels like the entire first season of a television show crammed into 100 minutes. It could be a good TV show – the cast is excellent, and some individual scenes work, but overall the movie lacks any real flow or coherence. It feels like a lot of character development and plots points are happening off-screen, between scenes, and so in every scene you have to reorient yourself to whatever the new reality is based on how the actors are playing it. The film is based on a little known DC comic, but it seems to want to cram in an entire run into one film – instead of perhaps something that work better, like being an introduction to the series – an origin story. It’s the type of movie that gives you whiplash, because it jumps around so much without much in the way of rhyme or reason.

 

The film takes place in 1970s Hell’s Kitchen – and focuses on three wives of some fairly low-level mobsters. When their husbands are sent to jail for three years, and the “family” doesn’t give them much in the way of support Kathy Brennan (Melissa McCarthy), Ruby O’Carroll (Tiffany Haddish) and Claire Walsh (Elisabeth he Moss) decide they’re going to take over the protection racket in Hell’s Kitchen. You would think this would be a complicated process, but no – not really. They simply go door-to-door and tell the businesses that they’ll play them now, and they say okay. While this does spark a war of sorts with the current boss – Little Jackie – it doesn’t last very long (the way it ends is truly one of the more bizarre, out-of-the-blue moments in any movie I can think of). Soon, they have some muscle in the form of Gabriel (Domhnall Gleeson) – a veteran with some mental issues – who falls in love with Claire. Claire goes from meek domestic abuse victim to full blown psychopath is record time. And Kathy and Ruby figure out that there are actually really good at running things – and don’t plan to back down for anyone, not even each other.

 

There’s more – a lot more – plot in The Kitchen, and dozens of minor characters that the movie wants us to keep straight and care about, despite the fact that they are barely introduced by the time some of them are murdered. There are rogue cops and FBI agents, dozens of minor gangsters, Hasidic Jews, Italian mobsters from Brooklyn, the three women’s husbands, and one of their mothers (Margo Martindale), who apparently is very well respected by the “family”, although we don’t know why. All of this robs the films of what could have made it so interesting – Claire’s transformation into the psychopath she becomes, how Ruby, a black woman, navigates the Irish dominated Hell’s Kitchen that basically hates her, and how Kathy goes from full on school mom, into a powerful, intelligent gangster. When you’re adapting anything for another medium – especially one that has the freedom to tell its story over a longer period of time, you have to boil it down to its essentials – figure out what the main thrust of what you want to say is. The Kitchen plays as if it wanted everything, all at once. And as a result, nothing really works.

 

And all that is a shame, because I would have loved to see a movie where the trio of talented leads – McCarthy, Haddish and Moss – really got to stretch out and take over. There is enough there is each performance to suggest that each could have easily done that, if given the chance. But writer/director Andrea Berloff tries to tell way too much story, so almost none of it works. Perhaps a miniseries would work – or a TV series. But as it stands, The Kitchen is a giant, unsatisfying mess.