It might be named for the Hell’s Kitchen neighbourhood of New York rather than a room where people whip up meals, but while The Kitchen has all the hallmarks of a dish boasting a lot of the right ingredients, somehow it still comes out tasting blandly unsatisfying. The story, adapted by first-time director Andrea Berloff from Ollie Masters and Ming Doyle’s DC/Vertigo graphic novel, finds wives going full gangster as they look to fill the power and money vacuum left by their jailbird partners. It’s a set up ripe with opportunity, yet it’s rarely fully exploited by this basic tale of mobster role reversal, which relies on twisting a few tropes and hoping that’s enough. It’s not.
Don’t blame the main cast, who do all they can to breathe life into their characters. McCarthy scored an Oscar nomination for her work in Can You Ever Forgive Me?, and Elisabeth Moss has a shelf full of trophies for Mad Men and The Handmaid’s Tale, but it’s Tiffany Haddish who most impressively sashays out of her comfort zone and into the persona of a woman who will do whatever it takes to climb the criminal ladder. Cunning and with a keen blend of street smarts and ruthlessness, Ruby pushes into territory that even McCarthy’s Kathy is loath to touch. Moss’ Claire, meanwhile turns from shy victim of abuse to cold-blooded killer, helped by her new beau, Gleeson’s sweet-but-deadly hit man. Their pairing is one of the few highlights, including an impromptu lesson on how to break down a corpse, which leaves Ruby and Kathy gagging.
Given the quality of her past scripts (including an Oscar nomination for Straight Outta Compton) Berloff’s directorial debut is sadly lacking, speeding through scenes as though half the movie’s a montage and, in the shadow of last year’s superior Widows, feeling stale and under-thought.
