Four stars. Rated R, for violence, profanity, nudity and sexual content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.16.18
This one hits the ground running — literally — and never lets up.
Director Steve McQueen’s skillfully constructed crime thriller boasts a top-flight ensemble cast and a sharp script — from McQueen and Gillian Flynn — along with slick editing (Joe Walker) and creative cinematography (Sean Bobbitt), which a camera that frequently crouches and prowls around walls and cars. The latter two elements contribute to a rising level of nail-biting tension that becomes nearly unbearable by the explosive climax.
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| Veronica (Viola Davis, center), grieving over the sudden, violent loss of her husband, is comforted by political candidate Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell), who insists that she get in touch if she ever needs anything. She'll find cause to hold him to that promise... |
Everything that a taut suspenser should be.
McQueen’s film is adapted and updated from an equally hard-boiled, six-part 1983 British miniseries written by Lynda La Plante, best known on these shores for having created DCI Jane Tennison, in the riveting Prime Suspect franchise. La Plante set the narrative in London; McQueen and Flynn transplant the action to Chicago, while adding a strong — and brilliantly integrated — political element.
(Chicagoans must wonder whether their city ever will escape its corruption-laden reputation.)
The story kicks off on a heist-in-progress gone violently awry, as a four-man crew led by Harry Rawlings (Liam Neeson) attempts to escape in a van, while police cars descend from all directions. This sequence is intercut with glimpses of earlier, calmer moments between the men and their four wives: Harry and Veronica (Viola Davis) in bed, deeply in love with each other; Linda (Michelle Rodriguez), arguing finances with the evasive Carlos (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo); Alice (Elizabeth Debicki), a Polish immigrant bride nursing another black eye inflicted by the abusive Florek (Jon Bernthal); and Amanda (Carrie Coon), happily nesting and co-parenting a newborn infant.
Back in the moment, Harry screeches the van into their warehouse hangout, two of his accomplices tending to the badly wounded third. But it’s a trap; surrounding police unleash a fusillade of gunfire. The van explodes and burns hot, leaving nothing but charred remains.
Meanwhile…
Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell), a legacy candidate running for alderman in Chicago’s 18th Ward, pays a visit to the modest campaign headquarters of Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry), the African-American opponent whose poll numbers have begun to climb. Jack’s family has run (and looted) the 18th Ward for generations, and Jack isn’t about to let that change on his watch; his viciously racist father, Tom (a savage, venom-spewing Robert Duvall), wouldn’t tolerate it.
This superficially cordial tête-à-tête between Jack and Jamal bristles with veiled threats and razor-sharp dialogue (which McQueen and Flynn continue to pen throughout the film). Jack clearly is as crooked as a spent match, dogged by accusations of having “extracted” $5 million from various phony public works projects. But it quickly transpires — after Jack departs — that the seemingly virtuous Jamal is no better.
Worse yet, Jamal’s interests are safeguarded by his homicidal younger brother Jatemme (Daniel Kaluuya, recognized from last year’s Get Out), a psychopath with a fondness for using guns and sharp knives to extract information … or eliminate “problems.”
These realms intersect when Jamal pays a threatening visit to Veronica’s lavish penthouse apartment, which she now finds distressingly silent and emotionally empty. Turns out that Harry and his crew stole $2 million in (likely ill-gotten) campaign funds from Jamal, and he wants it back. Veronica objects, knowing nothing of this; the money obviously went up in flames.
Jamal, noting the expensive furniture and appointments — and cradling her beloved, snow-white dog — is unmoved. Find it somehow, he orders. Sell everything, if you have to. $2 million. You have a month.
Veronica has one ally: Bash (Garret Dillahunt), the driver who once ferried Harry between appointments, and now similarly watches over her. Suspecting that Bash knew much about her husband’s affairs, she asks him to identify the other men who died in the van. And then she contacts their widows.
Harry left Veronica only one thing: his meticulously organized planning journal, which includes details of all previous heists … and what would have been the next one. She assembles the other women, and lays out the hard choice: Either they take on that caper themselves, in order to make good with Jamal, or they’ll all likely wind up in an alley, with a bullet in the brain.
It’s a genius premise. And the execution gets better and better.
Although there’s plenty of competition, Davis has the centerpiece role. Veronica is consumed by anguish, the grief so palpable that it literally radiates from the actress’ tucked-in frame. She alternately rages and withdraws, unleashing a panoply of emotions reminiscent of similarly powerful moments from her Academy Award-winning performance in Fences.
In the company of the other women, she masks this anguish by becoming authoritarian and unyielding; they go along not because they like or respect her, but because they’re terrified.
Davis may be the most intense, but Debicki is the most interesting. At first Alice is naïve and submissive, having cleaved to a brutal husband after being raised by an equally abusive mother (Jacki Weaver, in a brief but chilling turn). Alice’s world was controlled and sheltered, and — initially — she’s barely able to function on her own: a statuesque porcelain doll who might shatter at any moment.
Ah, but Alice gradually finds pockets of untapped strength, when forced to engage with life, the universe and everything. This role is guaranteed to bring Debicki an Oscar nomination.
Rodriguez makes Linda feisty and pugnacious: the natural outgrowth of a woman who got pregnant in high school, married her sweetheart, quickly regretted having done so, and now struggles as the single mother of two young children. The role is no stretch for Rodriguez, who has made a career of similarly confrontational, tough-talking women, but it’s an archetype she always handles with conviction.
Cynthia Erivo is a late-arriving wild card as Belle, the woman who initially babysits Linda’s children while she meets with the others. Erivo is equally terrific in a more quietly powerful role: Belle is stoic, fearless, and no stranger to life’s perils, having grown up in Chicago’s South Side. Erivo is compact, tough and absolutely not to be messed with.
Farrell nails the superficial smarm of a congenitally insincere shark, but the richly layered role has more depth. Jack actually feels trapped by birthright and expectation; he loathes his father — the feeling is mutual — and seems ill-equipped for the blood sport of politics.
Or is that just a pose?
Molly Kunz is perfectly poised and proper as Siobhan, Jack’s meticulously prepared assistant (who uncorks an eyebrow-scorching, put-on-your-big-boy-pants lecture at one point). Coon is quietly withdrawn as Amanda, a nurturing young mother who wants no part of what her fellow widows are planning. Dillahunt’s Bash is an intriguing study: resolutely loyal, but mildly compromised, as if from a long-ago sports injury.
Kaluuya is flat-out scary. During an unrelentingly edgy 129-minute film laden with ominous confrontations, Jatemme’s every appearance enhances our anxiety: Nothing good comes from the inquisitive charm he displays before getting down to business.
The film gets considerable provocative juice from its many contrasts, and how they intersect. The wealthy, impeccably dressed Jack Mulligan, born with the proverbial silver spoon (stolen, no doubt); and Jamal, making do with Spartan surroundings (and vicious associates). The different environments of the four widows: Veronica’s opulent surroundings; Linda’s hard-scrabble, blue-collar world; Alice’s sheltered, “show pony” existence; Amanda’s middle-class blandness.
At the same time, McQueen and Flynn slyly insert subtle — and deliberately ironic — references to contemporary real-world racial issues, along with veiled jabs at the treacherous lack of civility currently poisoning our country. Jon Michael Hill, as the impassioned and politically savvy Rev. Wheeler, delivers a masterful sermon at one point: a speech guaranteed to resonate far beyond this film’s confines.
Chicago becomes its own character, with production designer Adam Stockhausen taking full advantage of the varied political, racial, religious, bureaucratic, criminal and law-enforcement elements found within neighborhoods and regions that range from Lakeshore Drive and Hyde Park, to Lawndale, Garfield Park and Inglewood. These locales are just as visually fascinating as the characters who inhabit them.
Hans Zimmer’s minimalist synth score — sometimes almost subsonic — deftly magnifies the tension and suspense.
Everything is orchestrated superbly by McQueen, highlighted by his facility for coaxing persuasive performances from all cast members. As he demonstrated with 2008’s Hunger and 2013’s Best Picture-winning 12 Years a Slave, McQueen has the sharp gaze of a master filmmaker in control of every aspect of his craft.
Widows will further enhance that reputation. And deservedly so.
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