Movie Review: 'Widows' Is A Middling Heist Movie Kept Afloat By Stellar Acting

After reading some other reviews of Steve McQueen’s Widows, I seem to be in the minority. I did not think this was a very good movie. Parts of it were good. It certainly could have been a good movie; perhaps maybe even should have been. But it falls short in too many important facets. First, consider the plot. A small group of criminals is killed during a heist, each leaving behind a widow. The man they stole from, Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry), confronts Veronica (Viola Davis), the wife of the group’s leader, Harry Rawlings (Liam Neeson). Harry and his crew stole $2 million from Jamal and it was all destroyed in the firefight with police. Jamal passes that debt on to Veronica, giving her one month to pay him back.

Veronica recruits the wives of two of the other men, Linda (Michelle Rodriguez) and Alice (Elizabeth Debicki). They eventually bring in a fourth, Belle (Cynthia Erivo), as their driver. Harry left Veronica access to a notebook he kept, detailing all past and future jobs, including the crew’s next planned heist, which as conveniently been fully scouted and vetted. The three women decide to carry out this heist as the means of paying their late husbands’ debt.

It’s an interesting set up and very well could make for a good and fun film. But to do so would require hitting a few marks, marks that Widows whiffs on. First, you have to believe this group of non-criminals is capable of pulling off a job like this, especially given the short time frame. At no point did it feel like this crew was qualified to successfully commit a crime like this. This is Widows biggest problem. If you can’t buy into the plot, you can’t buy into the movie.

Then there’s the tricky handling of having the protagonists prepping to commit a crime. They still need to be sympathetic, the audience needs a reason to want them to succeed, even when that success is committing a felony. A movie can do that by making the characters so likable that you don’t care that what they’re doing is illegal (think Ocean’s 11). Or you can make their mark such a bad person that you’re okay seeing them get robbed.

Widows starts down both of those paths, but doesn’t quite fully get there on either. Linda, Alice, and Belle are all extremely likable. I can get behind those three. But Davis’ Veronica is wholly unlikable. Davis is fantastic in her performance, but she doesn’t give the audience reason to root for her. And she’s movie’s lead, she’s the group’s leader, so it’s of even more importance for the audience to be invested in her story. As for their target? (I won’t say who it is. It’s fairly predictable, but it’s handled in such a way that you may not see it coming.) This person is a scumbag, but not to the extent that you can actively root for these women to steal $5 million from him.

And all of this is set against a back drop of local alderman election. That’s right, alderman. I couldn’t even begin to guess what an alderman does. But if you go by how Widows handles it, it’s a big-time, important, high-level position. But none of the scenes feel like it. The two people running, Colin Farrell’s Jack Mulligan and…wait for it…Jamal Manning (!), run their campaigns out of their house and a church, respectively. Sounds pretty small-time. And the money Rawlings and his crew stole from Manning? He was going to use it to finance his campaign, to help transition from his life of unspecified criminal activity.

That’s another problem. We don’t learn much about Jamal. The most we get is this brief exchange. “Who’s Jamal Manning?” asks someone (I honestly can’t remember who, Belle maybe?). Linda responds, “Someone you don’t want to f*ck with.” That’s it. And that’s something everyone could have figured out on their own simply by looking at the context.

All of these problems combine into a choppy, uneven movie. It really hinges on whether or not you believe it’s within the realm of possibility that these women – who again, are not criminals; they have no experience in this area – can pull the job off. If you can buy into that, then you’ll probably thinks it’s a better than I did. That being said, however, there is certainly good to be had here.

If you enjoy the technical aspects of movies, Widows will not disappoint. The music and the score is great. It’s beautifully shot, resulting in some great looking scenes. McQueen did a fine job directing it. But it’s the collection of great performances that is easily the best part about Widows. There’s not a weak performance to be found. However, there are a number of characters who are misused or underused.

Viola Davis owns her role, the character just isn’t likable enough. Rodriguez, Debicki, and Erivo bring some much-needed heart. Henry, unfortunately, is not featured nearly as much as the trailers might have led us to believe. And that’s a shame. The scene early on when he confronts Veronica is one of the movie’s best. He’s absolutely menacing there. And then he just kind of fades away into the background. Matt Walsh was cast in a typical Matt Walsh role, and it was pretty funny, as you would expect. But it felt so out of place, it didn’t fit with the tone of the rest of the movie.

The biggest disgrace was Carrie Coon’s casting, or rather, how she was used. She is a fantastic actress, one of the best out there. The job she did in HBO’s The Leftovers can go toe-to-toe with anyone. Yet here she was relegated to nothing more than a bit part. That was incredibly disappointing to see. You see an actress like her appear on screen and you get excited. If you’re going to cast her, use her. If not, find someone else. It wasn’t a difficult role. It was beneath her.

But above all, Daniel Kaluuya is far and away the single best thing about this movie. He plays Jatemme Manning, Jamal’s brother and enforcer. He’s a sick and scary man, and you honestly fear him. Most of what he does is dark and twisted, but he’s responsible for a handful of the better scenes. Even though he is clearly a supporting character, there was room to give him a few more scenes. Similar to Carrie Coon’s casting, if you get someone of this caliber, use that to your advantage. He’s already established himself as a top-tier talent, let him showcase it.

In the end, Widows is a very watchable movie, but not much more. When you walk out of the theater you won’t be thinking about any of the twists, or any possible subtext. Rather, you will either be wondering what kind of accent Colin Farrell was trying to pull off or why McQueen did Neeson dirty and made him see like the world’s worst kisser (just trust me on this one).

Oscar hopes: It could see a number of nominations, though the only one I would agree with would be Kaluuya for Supporting.

Best Picture
Best Director: Steve McQueen
Lead Actress: Viola Davis
Supporting Actor: Daniel Kaluuya