The Kitchen

It sounds like it should be a good film. It has a helluva strong cast, a great concept and a nice twist on the traditional wiseguy story. But it’s not.

The dialog starts ok … the setup is ok… but the plot quickly descends into dross. Just a dopey story altogether, and as the story descends, the quality of the dialog follows.

What starts as a fresh take on the genre turns to pale imitation with a bunch of cliches and tropes. The position the women are initially left in rings true, but the way they take to the task of protection racketeering is rushed and unlikely.

Elisabeth Moss is wasted in a cliched, two dimensional role… one of few dud roles she’s been stuck with.

Melissa McCarthy delivers a great performance against the restrictions forced upon her and shows more of her dramatic chops than many of her previous roles have given her the chance to. Her performance lifts the star rating by a star or two. But if you’re determined to see this film and even more so if you want to like it, just watch the trailer. If on the other hand you watch it, prepare to wonder about the film this could have been.