Widows (2018)

“[on Harry] I always said he should burn in hell. But Chicago will do.” – Fuller

Number of Times Seen – 1 (20 Feb 2019)

Brief Synopsis – After there husbands are killed during a failed robbery, a group of widows are forced by the Mafia to return the money owed by their husbands before they suffer the same fate.

My Take on it – This is a film that I’ve been interested in seeing for quite some time, but only now finally got the opportunity to do so.

I knew very little about this film besides the fact that it was based on a British TV mini-series and that it was directed by Steve McQueen.

The premise itself is quite interesting, but they don’t manage to keep it thrilling enough which takes away so much from any kind of impact it may have.

Viola Davis is truly spectacular in the lead role and I’m quite shocked that she didn’t get more love during Awards season for her performance here even if the film itself is far from perfect.

This film tries much too hard to make things feels like a run of the mill heist film with a gender swap, but it should be much more than that and that also hurts things a lot.

It unfortunately fails to flow very well and certain aspects of the plot are too far fetched and just don’t seem realistic enough.

Besides Davis, the rest of the cast is also great but even with the likes of Liam Neeson, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debecki, Colin Farrell and Robert Duvall, they don’t manage to make this story engaging enough.

This is the kind of film that should be much more poignant and thrilling and something gets muddled along the way which is quite a shame.

The plot unfortunately feels much too forced and it has so much trouble finding its own voice that it feels too generic instead of being able to accomplish what it sets out to do.

Bottom Line – Interesting premise that just doesn’t work as well as one would hope. Davis is spectacular in the lead role and she shines throughout, but she is clearly by far the best thing about this film. They try much too hard to make this feel like a regular heist film just with a different gender, but it doesn’t flow well enough to make it seem plausible on so many fronts. The cast is addition to Davis is great, but even with a stellar cast, they aren’t able to make things feel more poignant or even more thrilling in the way things play out which is quite unfortunate.  In the end, this feel like a plot that is “forced” since it isn’t able to find it’s own voice that would help it flow more smoothly.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Tanera Marshall coached the actors on their Chicago accent. She collected samples, to avoid stereotypes, and left the choice to the director and actors to evaluate what best fit the characters. She then worked with each actor individually to refine pronunciation. (From IMDB)

Rating – BAFTA Worthy (6/10)

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