The Kitchen

First Hit: At the beginning, this film had promise, but this promise fell away to mediocrity in the end.

The idea of three housewives taking over their husband’s gang-related activities because the husbands were jailed had intrigue and promise.

Kathy Brennan (Melissa McCarthy) is married with two children. Her husband, Jimmy (Brian d’Arcy James) is part of the local Hell’s Kitchen crime group that fleeces businesses for protection. He’s probably the least aggressive of the three men.

Ruby O’Carroll (Tiffany Haddish) is married to Kevin (James Badge Dale) who is currently the leader of this local crime group. His mother Helen (Margo Martindale) provides her son with direction about the band of thieves he runs. Her husband started the group, and therefore, she still holds some power over the neighborhood.

Claire Walsh (Elizabeth Moss) is married to Rob (Jeremy Bobb) who is a brutish bully of a man, and he regularly beats Claire and is a primary thug in this Hell’s Kitchen enforcement group.

The three men get caught by the FBI while robbing a local business and are sent away. The new temporary leader of the enforcement group said they will continue to financially provide for the wives while their husbands are doing time. However, the stipend is not enough. So the girls get together and decide they can become an enforcement group, thereby overriding their husbands' protection club.

Upon hearing that Rob, Claire’s husband, is in jail, Gabriel O’Malley (Domhnall Gleeson) comes back to the neighborhood and announces his return by shooting and killing a man who is attempting to rape Claire.

Teaching the three women how to efficiently cut up and get rid of the body, he becomes their primary enforcer. However, Claire wanting to never be bullied again, learns to kill and is exceptionally competent at this and cutting up bodies - she's a natural.

As the three women build their protection business, the old group comes after them. But are stymied because as the women take over another neighborhood, the local mafia head Alfonso Coretti (Bill Camp) calls for a meeting, and a deal is created between his group and the girls. Together they neutralize the original Hell’s Kitchen group and gain support by providing protection and labor jobs for the community.

There’s a side story that is hinted at and finally brought to life that Ruby is having an affair with one of the FBI investigators Gary Silvers (Common). This, to me, creates an unnecessary distraction and side story and is not required to advance, what could have been, a good story.

Ruby slowly tries to take over the group that Melissa, Ruby, and Claire started together, and the writer used this FBI link as a significant part of the reason for the takeover by Ruby.

When the women’s husbands get out of jail early, there is trouble as expected, and the conflict doesn’t end well for the husbands.

This story is about women taking charge and with Ruby’s link to a male FBI agent seemingly having some influence, took away the power and guts of this story.

Additionally, I thought the movie was too long by taking too much time to prove points. Also, I didn’t believe the FBI piece of the story needed to be even part of the film. There easily other ways to create motivation for Ruby.

Another part of the film which didn’t quite work was that the director, Andrea Berloff, didn’t ensure each scene was correctly set in the 1970s. For comparison to this sort of attention to detail watch Quentin Tarantino’s latest film and this one – the aspect isn’t there in this film.

McCarthy is strong as the Irish woman who, loves her children, works at creating a good home life, but when push comes to shove, she is tired of playing second fiddle. Haddish is equally strong in this role; however, the whole FBI relationship back story just wasn’t needed. There were other ways she could claim her race, sex, and power. Moss was outstanding as the pushed around wife who wasn’t going to take it any longer. Having been a punching bag for her husband, she commits to protecting herself and does this in spades. But it was her eyes and facial expressions that sold both sides of her really well. Camp was great as the honorable mafia head that kept his integrity in tack by honoring his agreements. Gleeson was excellent as the guy who finally got to have a relationship with Claire that he always wanted. Martindale was instrumental as the once-powerful wife and mother to her family’s mob protection group. She gets her comeuppance. Berloff wrote and directed this film, and as I’ve previously stated, the story lost its effectiveness by adding the unnecessary Ruby and Gary Silvers relationship. The film also ran out of steam and probably needed pruning.

Overall: This film had potential, showed it at times, but ultimately failed to deliver.

Instant Family

First Hit: This was a very funny, touching, and poignant film about foster care and love.

Based partially on a true story, Pete and Ellie Wagner (Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne respectively) are enjoying a wonderful life together. They have built a successful business of flipping homes together. However, when they visit her family during one of the holidays, the family gets into a heated, yet hilarious discussion about kids.

They attend a Foster kid information meeting, which is hilarious, that is led by Sharon (Tig Notaro) and Karen (Octavia Spencer). As they learn more about the foster children and their needs, the more they are touched and consider adopting.

They select an older girl Lizzy (Isabela Moner) who has two younger siblings Juan and Lita (Gustavo Quiroz and Juliana Gamiz respectively). after learning that they will have to take all three the first week or so, starts off fairly well and when Pete and Ellie go to their foster support group they think, they’re “pretty good at this.” But then it happens, Pete and Ellie are faced with the difficulties, resentment, and behavior issues that foster care children can bring to the table through no fault of their own.

Watching Pete and Ellie, learn to fall in love with the kids was very well done. It was a subtly evolved piercing their outward bravado.

The scenes, although obvious in nature, allowed the actors to grow into the family dynamic and situation with both comedic and heartbreaking outcomes. When the biological mother comes back into their life, it was obvious that Lizzy hoped it would work, but the pressure overcame the mother —again. When Pete and Ellie meet with their support group, the comradery of people facing like and different difficulties with their foster children was both amusing while containing some real life challenges.

The quick quips between Sharon and Karen were extremely well timed and appropriately funny.

Wahlberg was strong as the charged up wanna be dad, fixer, and solver of problems. Although he can come off as pressing the character at times, in the end, he was perfect. Byrne was excellent. I loved her movement from reluctance to strong advocate. She showed sensitivity, warmth and strength. Moner was brilliant as the teenage girl that had been thrust into a parenting role and then had to let go and become a teenage girl learning how to grow up. The two scenes with the hairbrush were perfect: First sensitive, touched; followed by resentment and hurt. Quiroz and Gamiz were wonderful as Moner’s younger siblings. Quiroz showed a wonderful sensitive side, while Gamiz was both sweet and strong-willed. Spencer was fantastic and very funny as one of the foster case women. Notaro was equally wonderful and funny as Spencer’s straight woman and co-case worker. As a team they were perfect for this story. Julie Haggerty as Jan, Ellie’s mother, was wonderfully naïve, yet insightful. Margo Martindale was perfect as Pete’s overbearing, loud, and strong willed mother whose insights to raising children were helpful. Sean Anders and John Morris wrote a funny screenplay that made use of real-life experience. Anders did a good job of making this film work. His actual experience with foster care and adoption was apparent.

Overall: This film worked because the story had a ring of truth and the actors embraced their characters.

August: Osage County

First Hit:  Overly dramatic with dysfunctional characters and for a story that started as a black comedy it just stays black.

I’m not sure what it was I was supposed to see; a black comedy or drama. What I saw was a drama that was overly dramatic.

That the story, as presented, was not believable from the father dying (Why did he commit suicide?) to the newly discovered brother, it just seemed like a string of strong dramatic scenes. Violet, the mother, (Meryl Streep), and her three daughters Barbara (Julia Roberts), Ivy (Julianne Nicholson) and Karen (Juliette Lewis) are all together to honor Violet’s husband Beverly (Sam Shepard) who committed suicide.

The dinner with other relatives meeting at the house after the funeral is the time that is suppose to set up everything else in the film, but the way Violet and Barbara dominate the scenes it loses momentum. One character that seemed to find the right tone was Lewis as Karen the youngest daughter. Her looseness, attitude, and philosophy seemed to “get” the black comedy part of the script. Did I feel sad for Ivy? Yes, I thought her predicament of being the “one” who lived closest to her mom and having to be the go-to sister was difficult enough but then the information that her love was misplaced added to this tragic character. From the character standpoint I like her the best.

Streep, seemed to want to play this character as dark as possible with little thought towards seeing anyone else but herself. Just a glimpse of seeing would have helped the film. Her role seemed overly self-indulgent both character wise and story wise. Roberts was good and I enjoyed watching her, but it seemed she was taking Streep’s lead and over darkening her character. Nicholson, was someone the audience could actually care about and I liked her involvement. Lewis was both dark and funny. She was one of the best parts of this film. Margo Martindale playing Mattie Fae Aiken (Sister-in-law to Violet) was another role that seemed to overstep the bounds of the character. I could see her delivering what the director wanted and enjoying it, but…. Shepard was good in his very limited role but there wasn’t a reason for his actions. Tracy Letts wrote both the screenplay and play so there wasn’t a reason why it work from a scripting point of view. Therefore, it was the direction by John Wells that moved this film this way – poorly.

Overall:  Not a film I could recommend – it was forgotten the very next day.