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.

Hunter Killer: Old-school Cold War thrills

Hunter Killer (2018) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for violence and profanity
By Derrick Bang

Boy, this one takes me back.

Director Donovan Marsh’s handsomely mounted adaptation of 2012’s Firing Point is a suspenseful, well-paced thriller. The George Wallace/Don Keith novel is, itself, a throwback to Alistair MacLean classics such as The Guns of Navarone and Ice Station Zebra, both of which also became crackling adventure films.

U.S. submarine commander Joe Glass (Gerard Butler, right) and his counterpart,
Russian commander Andropov (Michael Nyqvist) contemplate how best to handle
an international crisis that is escalating rapidly out of control.

The comparison to Ice Station Zebra is particularly apt, because Hunter Killer unfolds like a 1960s Cold War thriller, complete with U.S./Russian anxiety, posturing politicians, ground-level grunts given an impossible mission, and a maverick submarine commander willing to defy D.C. in order to avoid World War III.

Ah, the good ol’ days.

This new film also unfolds like a mystery, if only initially. The story begins deep beneath Arctic Circle ice, as a U.S. “hunter-killer” submarine clandestinely shadows a Russian sub: one side keeping tabs on the other. Suddenly the Russian vessel explodes, to the astonishment of the Americans; before they can consider whether to mount a rescue, they’re also crippled and sent to the ocean floor.

By whom, we wonder.

Back at the Pentagon, anxiety mounts when the American sub fails to make its scheduled report. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Charles Donnegan (Gary Oldman), a veteran hawk always willing to believe the worst of the Russians, wants to mobilize nearby battleships and destroyers. Rear Admiral John Fisk (Common), a next-gen negotiator loathe to jump to conclusions, seeks alternative solutions.

U.S. President Dover (Caroline Goodall, standing in for Hilary Clinton), considering all options, authorizes investigative reconnaissance by the USS Arkansas: a second hunter-killer sub, to be commanded by Joe Glass (Gerard Butler). He’s an unusual choice: a blue-collar “guy’s guy” who gained his knowledge of submarines the practical way, by working his way up through various departments, in marked contrast to Annapolis graduates with no hands-on experience.

In other words, Glass is savvier — and sneakier — than all those Pentagon desk jockeys.

Meanwhile… 

Long-range satellites have revealed unusual activity at the Polyarny Russian naval base, at the outermost western side of Kola Bay. Senior National Security Agency analyst Jayne Norquist (Linda Cardellini), sent to the Pentagon with need-to-know details, advises that Russian President Zakarin (Alexander Diachenko) has just arrived at Polyarny for unknown reasons.

Megan Leavey: A doggone good tale

Megan Leavey (2017) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for war violence, dramatic intensity and mild profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.9.17

Next time my parents grouse that movies aren’t like they used to be, I’ll point them toward this one.

Newly deployed in Fallujah, Iraq, Cpl. Megan Leavey (Kate Mara) and her explosives-
sniffing dog, Rex, are assigned to detect the improvised explosive devices (IEDs)
hidden in and alongside the road on which their vehicles need to travel.

Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s Megan Leavey is a straight-ahead drama with plenty of heart, told in the uncomplicated manner that marked family-friendly movies back in the day ... and I mean that as a compliment. Scripters Pamela Gray, Annie Mumolo and Tim Lovestedt tell this story efficiently and poignantly, without needless emotional angst, and Cowperthwaite ensures that the narrative doesn’t slide into manipulative bathos.

Best of all, this is a true story: one likely to be remembered by those who followed the saga’s final chapter in 2012. While events have been compressed — as often is the case, with big-screen adaptations — Cowperthwaite and her collaborators hit the essential high points; the result is a thoroughly engaging and deeply poignant drama. And if you’re not moved by the final scene, you’re truly made of stone.

On a sidebar note, it also marks a solid star turn by Kate Mara, who has spent the last decade impressing TV viewers with memorable supporting roles in 24, American Horror Story and House of Cards. She hasn’t been as lucky with big-screen work — and probably wishes that 2015’s Fantastic Four hadn’t happened — but this new film should enhance her profile, and deservedly so.

Her Megan Leavey is introduced here in 2003, as an aimless, desperately unhappy 20-year-old New Yorker taking up space in her bedroom. Her mother, Jackie (Edie Falco), has become disgusted by this daughter who, we can assume, probably has been a nightmare child for many years. Then again, Jackie is no prize; Falco makes her such a believably horrid shrike that Leavey’s actual mother might have grounds for character assassination.

At low ebb and with no other plans, Megan impulsively joins the Marines, surviving boot camp and subsequently attending military police school at San Diego’s Camp Pendleton. But her “wild child” tendencies haven’t quite been eradicated; an ill-advised night of misbehavior results in a week of scut detail in the camp’s kennel unit ... and the promise of a dishonorable discharge, if she screws up one more time.

Not to worry. Megan is immediately fascinated by the K9 unit, and particularly by a massive, apparently unruly German shepherd named Rex. Gaining permission to have anything to do with this dog, however, means buckling down in all sorts of ways, before the K9 unit’s gruff Sgt. Gunny Martin (Common) will give her even a second glance.