Unexpected depths to female crime story
Widows
K (out of 4) Starring Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Daniel Kaluuya, Liam Neeson, Brian Tyree Henry and Colin Farrell. Written by Steve McQueen and Gillian Flynn. Directed by Steve McQueen. Opens Friday at major theatres. 129 minutes. 14A Director Steve McQueen’s artful slow-take style, in films like
12 Years a Slave and Hunger, would seem to make him an odd choice for the ticking-clock pace of a caper pic, but don’t be fooled.
That’s just one of the assumptions up for reassessment in this sinewy Chicago crime thriller co-scripted by McQueen and Gone Girl’s Gillian Flynn. It’s based on a British TV mini-series, written by Lynda La Plante, that aired in the U.K. in the 1980s.
Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki and Cynthia Erivo play the recently widowed partners of a gang of heist artists, led by Liam Neeson, whose explosive demise has saddled them with problems, including a major debt to a local crime boss (Brian Tyree Henry) and his violent enforcer ( Get Out’s Daniel Kaluuya).
Sleazy father-and-son politicians played by Robert Duvall and Colin Farrell contribute to the rising tide of corruption that Davis’ Veronica Rawlings, a respected Chicago Teachers Union rep, is forced to wade through as she tries to figure out what to do.
The women elect to pick up where their men left off, but they’ve got a few things to learn — don’t take your dog to a bank heist, for one — and also to uncover and reveal.
The audience gets wise by degrees, too, all part of the pleasure of watching a story well told.