The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Too little fury
Women are scorned — and take charge — in mob drama ‘The Kitchen,’ but it falls flat
If only a bunch of wrongs could make a right. ¶ Perhaps then “The Kitchen” — a new period crime drama boasting an intriguing trio of leading actresses, two of whom are known for their comedic work — might really be something. ¶ Unfortunately, though, “The Kitchen” feels every bit the work of a first-time director, Andrea Berloff’s adaptation of a DC Vertigo comic miniseries being an often-flat, frequently clunky affair that limps its way to an unsatisfying conclusion. ¶ Its storytelling is almost shockingly weak considering that Berloff — who also wrote the screenplay — was nominated for an Oscar for Original Screenplay for 2015 strong “Straight Outta Compton.” ¶ But, you know, other than all that …
“The Kitchen” tells a tale of three wives of Irish mobsters in late 1970s New York City, the work taking its title from, as the film’s press notes refer to it, “the 20 blocks of pawnshops, porn palaces and dive bars between Eighth Avenue and the Hudson River owned by the Irish mafia and known as Hell’s Kitchen.” When the hubbies — lousy dudes when it comes to those tied to Ruby O’Carroll (Tiffany Haddish) and Claire Walsh (Elisabeth Moss), if perhaps not he of Kathy Brennan (Melissa McCarthy) — get pinched by the FBI, the ladies find themselves in dire financial situations. They’re not taken care of the way they thought they’d be the group’s arrogant leader, Little Jackie (Myk Watford), and Ruby’s powerful mother-in-law, Helen — a chameleonic (and largely wasted) Margo Martindale — isn’t any help. (She slaps the three ladies with a pretty derogatory term for females following the trial of the men, which ends with them sentenced to three years in prison.)
After Claire, at first seemingly the weakest-willed of the three, is attacked while volunteering at a church, the trio decides they’re not going to be pushed around by anyone anymore. And, so, they go after Jackie’s business, not all that difficult considering his organization hasn’t exactly been illustrating much of a return on investment to the Hell’s Kitchen businesses paying it protection money. Their inevitable takeover, while coming with some bumps in the road, feels too easy, especially given that it doesn’t truly seem like they know what they’re doing, at least not at first. (Sure, fakeit-till-you-make-it can work at times, but in organized crime? Seems unlikely.) They do get a boost from a hitman, Gabriel O’Malley (Domhnall Gleeson), who returns to New York after lying low out West and has long had a thing for Claire. And a few of the film’s best scenes involve the laid-back Gabriel showing the women how to prepare a body to be dumped in the river — it’s imperative you remember to puncture both lungs or the carcass is likely to float to the top, he kindly explains as a dead man lies in a tub — and training Clair to kill. The story threatens to become more interesting when the women butt up against the business interests of a major Italian mobster in Brooklyn, Bill Camp’s Alfonso Coretti, but that doesn’t really happen. Camp (“The Night Of”) is an interesting actor, so his scenes are a bit better than the “Kitchen” norm, but they don’t make enough of an impact. Eventually, “The Kitchen” revolves around a growing conflict between two of the now-powerful women, but their interactions feel largely hamfisted. The aforementioned ending is especially badly constructed by Berloff. Her approach as the director seems to have been to give her performers a lot of space with which to work, to let their acting carry the scenes. That’s an admirable idea, but while Moss has the dramatic chops for it — she’s so good in Hulu’s acclaimed series “The Handmaid’s Tale” — the other two do not. Haddish, who’s the single biggest reason the enjoyalbe 2017 comedy “Girls Trip” was as uproarious as it proved to be, is interesting here and there, but she largely feels out of her depth. And McCarthy — a comedy-movie staple at this point who deserved the accolades she received for her more serious work in last year’s “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” — never finds her footing in “The Kitchen.” It’s a problem that the best work on “The Kitchen” was turned in by director of photography Maryse Alberti (“Creed”); this decades-old version of the Big Apple comes alive, and there are myriad nice camera shots to appreciate. Not even Oscar-nominated editor Christopher Tellefsen (“A Quiet Place”) can give “The Kitchen” some of the punch and pacing it badly needs. Look, it doesn’t help that the story of “The Kitchen” feels at least vaguely similar to last year’s reasonably superior “Widows,” but even if that film didn’t exist, this one would be a clunker. It’s highly laudable that female empowerment is front and center in this movie. Even as the women begin to turn on each other, they are the ones in control, not some more-powerful man. Still, there simply isn’t enough heat in “The Kitchen,” so McCarthy, Haddish and Moss should get out of it — and into something better.