The biggest selling point for “The Kitchen” is it’s star trio of actors sharing the screen together. Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, and Elisabeth Moss have won us all over at one time or another on other projects, so why wouldn’t they succeed together on the same film? Unfortunately, The Kitchen’s story is just too strange and even too irrational at times to allow them to.
The three play mob wives who are left struggling after their husbands are sent to jail. After being brushed aside by the crime family they worked for, the ladies decide to take matters into their own hands and overthrow organized crime in Hell’s Kitchen.
Director Andrea Berloff does create a good looking 1978 New York world, and the costumes and sets are great. The first half of the film works in getting us interested and invested in caring about Kathy (McCarthy), Ruby (Haddish), and Claire (Moss).
But the second half of The Kitchen completely falls part.
Characters start doing things that make little sense in what’s been introduced to us in the first hour. Events are rushed and the twists and turns the plot decides to make are just bizarre and makes us actually become somewhat indifferent to how things wrap up. It’s like the script was rushed to its completion. Watching the lines muttered by this talented cast in this story might make you wince.
This could have been a good film, but sadly it’s not. This group will recover and maybe they’ll fall into another project together in some configuration with a story that will really let them fly.
The Kitchen
GRADE: D
Rated: R
Running time: 1hr 43 minutes
