‘WIDOWS’ COMES ALIVE WITH ELECTRIC SUSPENSE
The last time director Steve McQueen graced the big screen was five years ago with the punishing and Oscar-winning “12 Years a Slave.” Now, he’s back with the very different “Widows,” a genre movie carrying a twist that may not have the somber import of its predecessor but is an equally persuasive piece of filmmaking.
“Widows” is a heist movie and, for some, that might seem like cinematic slumming for someone of McQueen’s obvious talents and serious intent. True, there have been some dud examples of the form in recent years, and “Widows” shares a sliver of story DNA with one of them, “Ocean’s Eight,” as both are about a gang of women pulling off a big score.
But that’s where the similarities end. “Widows,” scripted by McQueen and “Gone Girl” writer Gillian Flynn, is a simultaneously thrilling and unsettling elevation of the form above cliché. Powered by an understated performance by Viola Davis, “Widows” shows what can be done within the boundaries of the expected while delivering something unexpected.
Davis is Veronica, a Chicago woman who seems to have all the privileges of a gangster’s wife (the clothes, the cars, the condo, the cute West Highland terrier) and none of the worries (the cops, the other criminals, the pols, the violence). Nice life if you can get it — and she won’t have it for long.
As the movie starts, Veronica’s husband, Harry (Liam Neeson), and his crew are in the midst of a botched robbery that turns deadly after an explosive confrontation with the police in which everything, including the loot, goes up in flames.
After Veronica learns of the death of Harry and his boys, she is informed by two local hoods — wanna-be politician Jamal (Brian Tyree Henry, so impressive as rapper Paper Boi in “Atlanta”) and his enforcer/brother Jatemme (a
scary-good Daniel Kaluuya from “Get Out”) — that the person Harry had ripped off was him. He wants his $2 million back and she has a month to do it.
But, like Beyoncé, Veronica is determined to turn this particularly nasty crop of lemons into sweet, sweet lemonade. She has
the one thing Harry left her: a journal detailing the ins-and-outs of all of his jobs, including the next one on his to-do list.
Veronica rounds up two of the other now-penniless widows of her husband’s associates — Linda (Michelle Rodriguez) and Alice (Elizabeth Debicki) — as well as a financially strapped new recruit, Belle (a fierce Cynthia Erivo, “Bad Times at the El Royale”), and offers them a deal. If they help her pull off that next heist Harry had planned, they can split $3 million of the estimated $5 million haul and use the rest to get Jamal off their backs.
Sounds easy, right? Based on a British TV series from the ’80s, “Widows” is electric with tension and suspense. This is obvious from the first frames when McQueen cuts between Veronica and Harry in a more tender moment and Harry’s heist falling apart as it descends into gunfire and flames. McQueen doesn’t let up from there as he keeps the viewer just slightly off-balance, waiting for the next violent shoe to drop. Often that discomfort comes from the way McQueen shoots, as in the scene where a conversation inside a car is captured from an exterior tracking shot at an odd angle.
The performances are all strong, with the one misstep being a scenery-chewing Robert Duvall as Tom Mulligan, a racist politician whose smooth-talking son, Jack (Colin Farrell), is running for alderman against Jamal.
The cast list may be a bit too long though, as some notables barely get the chance to even be on screen. Blink and you’ll miss Jon Bernthal. Still, this is a minor complaint. “Widows” is ultimate proof that, for a filmmaker with vision and talent, the constraints of genre tropes aren’t imprisoning, they’re inspiring.
MICHELLE RODRIGUEZ, FROM LEFT, VIOLA DAVIS AND ELIZABETH DEBICKI STAR IN “WIDOWS.”