THE KITCHEN
★★★★★
THERE’S lots of heat but not enough spice in this unevenly cooked crime drama which sees Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss muscling in on the mobster action in Hell’s Kitchen in 1970s New York.
When their husbands are jailed for armed robbery, the women take over the running of the local protection rackets and graduate to bribery, blackmail, and murder.
Thriving in their new work environment empowers the anti-heroes to make drastic changes at home, but despite fate serving up a helping hand in the form of Domhnall Gleeson’s blackclad hitman, their success is unconvincingly rapid.
Individually great, the female trio’s distinct acting styles are far from complementary and adds to the confused tone which veers from caper to tragedy, and fails to successfully make a palatable blend of the black comedy and domestic violence.
And though the cauldron of sexual and racial politics bubbles over to become a blood bath, this movie drama never really comes to the boil.
Rap star Awkwafina plays her granddaughter Billie and delivers a mature and subtle performance of unexpected range. She is as far away from her outrageous exuberant persona of 2018’s Crazy Rich Asians as the humdrum industrial Chinese city of Changchun of the film’s setting is from New York, where she begins the film.
This is the second feature film from upcoming director Lulu Wang, whose Beijingborn American-raised background clearly filters into and informs her thoughtful, funny and well-observed work.