“The Kitchen” (R)

While she’s no Francis Ford Coppola or Martin Scorsese, you still have to admire writer-director Andrea Berloff for her willingness to get her hands bloody with “The Kitchen,” a 1970s-era mob movie rooted in a DC graphic novel series that features the burgeoning dramatic talents of comedy star Melissa McCarthy. But while McCarthy takes another stroll out of her comfort zone, she’s chosen a film that, while it flips its script in a genre dominated by men, it ultimately doesn’t contain anything apart from its role-reversals that makes it rise above what we’ve seen before.

Following her Best Actress nomination for the underrated 2018 drama “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” McCarthy is one of a trio of mob wives who have no choice but to take over their husband’s crime racket in Hell’s Kitchen in New York City when the men are sent to prison for three years.

AUDIO: Hear Tim’s review of “The Kitchen” and more with Paul Douglas and Jordana Green on “Paul and Jordana” on WCCO-AM. Segment is brought to you by  Michael Bryant and Bradshaw & Bryant.

McCarthy stars as Kathy, the wife of a small-time Irish mobster (Brian d’Arcy James), who along with his partners (James Badge Dale and Jeremy Bobb), get busted by the FBI during an armed robbery gone terribly awry. Struggling to make ends meet while their husbands are in jail, Kathy, Ruby (Tiffany Haddish) and Claire (Elizabeth Moss) decide to pick up where the mobsters left off and begin to provide protection to neighborhood businesses from thugs – and as a result of their success, begin building their own criminal empire. It doesn’t take long, though, before the new kids on the crime block  out-step their boundaries and land in the crosshairs of other members in the Irish mob, as well as a local Italian crime head (Bill Camp).

While McCarthy and Haddish are particularly known for their comedic talents, they play their roles in “The Kitchen” with complete seriousness. That’s not to say there isn’t any comedy in the film, as Domhnall Gleeson provides darkly awkward laughs as a former member of the crew who returns to town just as the fearless female trio begins to take a foothold on their neighborhood and beyond. Margo Martindale is a standout, too, as the blunt, no-nonsense mother-in-law of Ruby who pushes her daughter-in-law to the limit as she tries to make do while her husband is locked away.

On the other hand, rapper-turned-actor Common is wasted in a role that doesn’t yield much until a surprise twist later in the film, and the bulk of the film’s large supporting cast end up being portrayed as nothing but stereotypical mobsters.

While Berloff’s gangster film is a far cry from “The Godfather” and “Goodfellas,” her work definitely matches up to the similarly themed 2018 crime drama “Widows,” starring Viola Davis. There’s no question the director captures the gritty look of Hell’s Kitchen and brutal thuggery of criminals in the 1970s, which shouldn’t come as a surprise given she’s penned the screenplays for such hard-hitting films as “Straight Outta Compton” (which earned her a shared Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay) and Oliver Stone’s “World Trade Center.”

AUDIO: Hear Tim’s review of “The Kitchen” with Tom Barnard on “The KQ Morning Show” on KQRS-FM. Segment is brought to you by  Michael Bryant and Bradshaw & Bryant.

Berloff should also be commended for her resolve to stir the pot in “The Kitchen,” as her female power trio do much more than issue orders to their underlings. In fact, the filmmaker turns one of the main characters into an unforgiving executioner, and the other two into coldblooded crime bosses who call out ruthless hits on people in the same, matter-of-fact manner as their male counterparts. However, that’s where the quandary comes in. While it’s refreshing to see the women rising up and kicking ass for a change, their actions are truly reprehensible, making it almost impossible to root for them. No matter who is in charge, “The Kitchen,” if anything, proves that crime does not pay.

Lammometer: 6.5 (out of 10)

Tim Lammers reviews movies weekly for “The KQ92 Morning Show,”  WCCO Radio, WJON-AM, KLZZ-FM, “The Tom Barnard Podcast” and “The BS Show” with Bob Sansevere. On TV, Tim has made hundreds of guest appearances on “KARE 11 News at 11” (NBC).

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