L ATIMES.COM/CALENDAR FRIDAY, AUGUST 9, 2019E11
AT THE MOVIES
business that has yet to
maximize its full, bloody po-
tential.
That’s the setup for a
punchy, programmatic en-
tertainment that, as written
and directed by Andrea
Berloff, unfolds a story of
righteous female ascend-
ancy within the male-domi-
nated underworld of Hell’s
Kitchen in the late 1970s. The
gender politics are as ap-
pealing as the rock-solid trio
of lead actors (Melissa Mc-
Carthy, Tiffany Haddish and
Elisabeth Moss), even when
the movie itself proves less
than persuasive.
This is due to no lack of
apparent effort. Berloff, an
Oscar-nominated screen-
writer (“Straight Outta
Compton”) making her fea-
ture directing debut,
plunges into this gritty-
seedy milieu with a surfeit of
visual energy and a nerve-
jangling command of vi-
olence. The movie comes at
you with a quick, wham-bam
style that feels like a nod to
the source material, a DC
Vertigo comic-book series by
Ollie Masters and Ming
Doyle. (The shadowy wide-
screen cinematography is by
Maryse Alberti, the showily
retro production design by
Shane Valentino.)
The plot is “Widows” and
the mood is “Goodfellas,”
even if the actual time and
place hew closer to another
Scorsese classic, “Taxi
Driver.” The 1978 Hell’s
Kitchen that we see and hear
is a proudly ungentrified en-
clave of Irish American life,
where graffiti-covered sub-
way trains rumble past
Catholic churches and neon-
lit sex shops. In rapid suc-
cession we meet Kathy,
Ruby and Claire, all of whom
have married into a local
protection racket that treats
them as trophies at best,
afterthoughts at worst.
Kathy (McCarthy) has
two kids with Jimmy (Brian
d’Arcy James), the only guy
in the bunch who might con-
ceivably be described as de-
cent. Claire (Moss) is regu-
larly pummeled into submis-
sion by her husband, Rob
(Jeremy Bobb), while Ruby
mainly dwells in the shadow
of hers, Kevin (James Badge
Dale), and of her vile
mother-in-law (a scowling
Margo Martindale). The
three men work together as
the operation’s chief heavi-
es, and when they’re ar-
rested after a robbery and
sentenced to three years in
prison, the gangleader, Lit-
tle Jackie (Myk Watford), as-
sures the wives they’ll be well
taken care of. It turns out to
be an empty promise.
In desperate need of
cash, Kathy, Claire and
Ruby join forces and swiftly
make their way up the lad-
der — maybe a bit too swiftly.
Before long they’re swagger-
ing their way through a
patchy rags-to-riches mon-
tage: We see them muscling
and manipulating local busi-
nesses into paying up, seiz-
ing a hefty share of the prof-
its and threatening the reign
of Little Jackie and his
goons. Montages can make
for effective dramatic short-
hand, especially with a tem-
plate as well worn as the
gangster picture, but here
that shorthand feels more
like a shortcut, a means of
glossing over the all-impor-
tant minutiae. The plot of
“The Kitchen” twists and
bucklesbut it never fully
breathes.
Which is not to say the
ride doesn’t hold your atten-
tion or interest. Crime often
does pay, cinematically
speaking; at the very least, it
can afford a few stylistic divi-
dends. Our heroines’ rapid
rise to the top may not be co-
herently plotted in every
particular, but it is hard to
argue with the visual evi-
dence of their conspicuously
improved hair, jewelry and
wardrobe, from Kathy’s
lovely new feather cut to
Ruby’s enviable snakeskin
jacket.
Some of the narrative de-
tours are especially intrigu-
ing, as when Kathy and her
crew start branching out,
forging deals with Italian
mobsters and Hasidic jew-
elers across a fast-changing
New York landscape while
eluding the FBI agents on
their tail (Common, E.J. Bo-
nilla). Bill Camp is marvel-
ously reptilian as a Brooklyn
mafioso who lures them into
an uneasy cross-borough al-
liance. And the picturesurges dangerously to life
when Domhnall Gleeson
shows up as Gabriel, a sexy
agent of death with a vague
backstory and a long-sim-
mering attraction to Claire.
Their scenes together, in
which he trains Claire in the
ways of proper execution
and corpse disposal, are the
movie’s grisliest — and also,
disturbingly, its sweetest.
Moss makes the deepest
impression of the three
leads, mainly because she
has the clearest, most dram-
atic arc as a much-abused
woman who learns to fight
back and then some. McCar-
thy and Haddish seem
tamped down by compari-
son; they’re both known for
their skill at boisterous
mainstream comedy, and
they play shrewdly against
those associations here as
women who are as poker-
faced as they are ruthless.
You sense that Haddish’s
Ruby has more than a few
things she’d like to vent as
the lone black member of a
predominantly Irish family,
which means she’s had to en-
dure misogynist andracist
contempt.
But as with most of the
character wrinkles, that fas-
cinating dimension is ac-
knowledged, and at one
point articulated, without
being fully dramatized. One
of the comparative
strengths of “Widows,” last
year’s underappreciated
heist thriller about three
women in similarly desper-
ate straits, was the way it
welded the mechanics of
genre to razor-sharp obser-
vations about race, class
and gender. In that movie,
suspense and sociopolitical
illumination effectively
flowed from the same narra-
tive source.
“The Kitchen” attempts
asimilar alchemy, and it,
too, is grounded in the reso-
nant idea that only the dis-
mantling of the patriarchy
can ensure a woman’s sur-
vival. But it has nowhere
near the same dramatic co-
hesion, the same rooting in
character. What it does
boast a lot more of, unsur-
prisingly, is violence: bone-
cracking sound design, out-
of-nowhere gunfire and any
number of other easy, kicky
thrills that serve as the mov-
ie’s most recognizable debt
to Scorsese. As the movie
seems to remind us, nothing
levels the playing field like a
good killing.A 1 970S LOOKfor Elisabeth Moss, left, Melissa McCarthy and Tiffany Haddish.
Photographs by Alison Cohen RosaWith the men away,
‘Kitchen’ is ruled by
trio of tough women
[‘ Kitchen,’from E1]
‘The Kitchen’
Rated:R, for violence,
language throughout and
some sexual content
Running time:1 hour,
43 minutes
Playing:In general releaseJAMESBadge Dale, left, Jeremy Bobb and Brian d’Arcy James in “The Kitchen.”