The Kitchen: Not much cooking

The Kitchen (2019) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated R, for considerable profanity and bloody violence
By Derrick Bang

Strong performances can’t compensate for a weak script, no matter how much this film hopes you’ll think otherwise.

Are you talkin' to us? Claire (Elisabeth Moss, left), Ruby (Tiffany Haddish, center) and
Kathy (Melissa McCarth) find little to admire in the so-called men left to run the
Irish Mob in Hell's Kitchen.

Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss act up a storm, and their characters are solid; they easily hold our attention (although it’s probably a stretch to suggest that we ever sympathize with them). But too many key supporting characters are woefully underdeveloped, even when it’s crucial to understand them better.

Others have ethics that float like leaves on a stiff breeze. The sudden shifts can induce viewer whiplash.

Blame easily is assigned to first-time director Andrea Berloff, who also supplied a clumsy screenplay based on the eight-part 2015 comic book series by Ollie Masters and Ming Doyle. In her haste to mount a female-oriented crime thriller appropriately timed to the #MeToo movement, Berloff has forgotten the first rule of cinema: It’s always the story, stupid.

The setting is 1978 New York City, in the 20 blocks of pawn shops, porn palaces and dive bars squatting between Eighth Avenue and the Hudson River: aptly known as Hell’s Kitchen, and ruled by the Irish Mafia. The story hits the ground running, as gangsters Jimmy (Brian d’Arcy James), Kevin (James Badge Dale) and Rob (Jeremy Bobb) stage a hold-up, only to be interrupted by police and the FBI.

The result: three years in prison.

They leave families behind. Jimmy’s wife, Kathy (McCarthy), wonders how she’ll feed their two adolescent children. Kevin’s wife, Ruby (Haddish), is left in the company of her hateful mother-in-law, Helen (Margo Martindale), a spiteful-tongued shrew and neighborhood matriarch, who calls the shots behind the scenes. Rob’s battered wife, Claire (Moss), is grateful for his absence.

The Mob falls under the half-assed rule of Little Jackie (Myk Watford), whose promise to take care of the three women — because “we’re family” — proves woefully insufficient. Taking note of the general neighborhood dissatisfaction with Little Jackie, who demands protection money without offering protecting, Kathy and her friends decide to take matters into their own hands.

They’re initially nervous and unschooled in the ways of violence, but they learn quickly.

If all this sounds familiar, there’s good reason; not even a year has passed since last November’s release of Widows, which covers exactly the same territory. And that’s a far better film, because Steve McQueen is a far better director, and his screenplay — co-written with Gilliam Flynn, author of Gone Girl and Dark Places — is based on a vastly superior 1980s British TV miniseries by Lynda La Plante.

The Kitchen is a pale imitation. Try as it might, it cannot survive by attitude alone.

In fairness, the first act is reasonably well paced. As with Widows, we’re fascinated by the gradual transformation, as these three women become tougher, and more calculating.

Kathy, reluctantly agreeing to be the “brains” of their new endeavor, definitely has organizational skills; she’s also a personable “public face,” when they persuade neighborhood merchants to, ah, reassign their protection payments. McCarthy blends uncertainty and vulnerability with increased moxie and conviction; she also delivers the script’s occasionally mordant one-liners with well-honed comic timing, and has a killer deadpan stare.

Haddish’s Ruby is an intriguing puzzle. Although meek and easily cowed early on, in the presence of Kevin and his venomous mother, we begin to wonder if that was just an act. Once allied with Kathy and Claire, Ruby becomes sassier and bolder, even foolishly so: particularly when Little Jackie and most of his Mob thugs understandably get rather upset over this female invasion of their turf. Haddish has spunk and ’tude to spare, and Ruby’s swagger is enormously satisfying.

Moss’ Claire undergoes the most severe shift (as was the case with Elizabeth Debicki’s similarly abused Alice, in Widows). Claire initially cowers from shadows, barely able to put sentences together: reduced to abject terror after years of being a punching bag at her husband’s hands. But another random assault proves one too many; Moss’ gaze hardens, as Claire vows never again to be a victim.

She makes good on that promise — and, frankly, the three women survive their initial maneuvers — only due to the timely arrival of Gabriel O’Malley (Domhnall Gleeson), a Vietnam vet turned stone-cold hit man, who previously worked for the neighborhood Mob before relocating to the West, to avoid police. After hearing about the potential power shift, he returns and aligns with the wives.

This isn’t altruistic; Gabriel has long loved Claire, and — with her husband behind bars — he senses an opportunity to win her. Gleeson is a quiet hoot, as we discover that Gabriel approaches even the most outrageously vicious act with methodical calm.

Claire, in turn, proves a most willing apprentice when Gabriel matter-of-factly explains the ins and outs of street killing, and demonstrates the best way to cut up a body, in order to dispose of it in the Hudson River’s obliging currents. (This improvised surgery is performed just off-camera, accompanied by lurid sound effects and splashes of blood; our imaginations run riot.) Moss’ eager, rapt expression is both amusing and chilling, as is her initial request, shortly into this dissection lesson: “Can I do the other leg?”

Claire swiftly becomes the pluperfect sociopath, as a means of compensating for years of abuse. Moss’ performance is simultaneously exhilarating and horrifying.

Do we feel sorry for her? Interesting question.

Bill Camp is terrific as the refined Alfonso Coretti, head of Brooklyn’s much larger Italian crime family, now forced to decide what to do about these three upstart women. Annabella Sciorra also makes the most of her brief appearances as Coretti’s battle-hardened wife, Maria.

But the film gets sloppier with its handling of FBI agents Gary Silvers (Common) and Martinez (E.J. Bonilla). They’re crucial to the plot, but we don’t spend nearly enough time with them; this is particularly true in the wake of a third-act twist, which comes out of nowhere … and, afterwards, is left dangling quite awkwardly.

It’s equally difficult to get a bead on Wayne Duvall’s performance as Kathy’s union-proud, working-class father; he’s the most egregious of those floating leaves, whose behavior takes an unpersuasive 180-degree shift that Berloff’s script awkwardly tries — and fails — to sell.

As also is true of the bonkers climax, which jumps several levels beyond completely ridiculous. This is supposed to be satisfying, or reasonable? Hardly. Berloff’s film doesn’t conclude; it just stops.

McCarthy, Haddish, Moss and Gleeson comport themselves honorably, and McCarthy — in particular — can mark this as another welcome step toward mainstream dramatic respect. Too bad Berloff’s efforts aren’t in their league.