King of Fools (The Shadow Game, #2)
6.0
Rate It
Book
Name your price and claim your throne. On the quest to find her missing mother, prim and proper...
The Assassination Of Marilyn Monroe
Book
This book is the fully documented story of Marilyn Monroe's death - a heart-stopping account of the...
Murder, etc.
5.0
Rate It
Podcast
GREENVILLE, SC: January 31, 1975: Lt. Frank Looper was about to break the biggest case of his life....
True Crime
BankofMarquis (1832 KP) rated The Kitchen (2019) in Movies
May 17, 2020
I should have watched 21 BRIDGES.
Based on the DC/VERTIGO graphic novel, THE KITCHEN is set in the late 1970's in NYC and offers up the "what if" scenario of 3 women that take over the Mafia. A pretty interesting premise that could have been the GODFATHER or GOODFELLA's of the day (or...at least...another WIDOWS from 2018), but instead THE KITCHEN falls flat like the all female GHOSTBUSTERS from a few year's ago.
A star of that Ghostbuster's film, Melissa McCarthy leads the cast as Kathy Brennan, the wife of a mobster who was sent to jail and becomes the leader of the group. McCarthy has shown that she has the "chops" as an actress to tackle this role, but she never really gets there. There is no real depth or emotional stakes to her character throughout the course of the film. The screenplay (and McCarthy's performance) does pick up at the end, but by then, it is too little, too late. Also not fairing well is comedienne Tiffany Hadish as Ruby O'Carroll - an African-American female trying to dominate in a predominately white male world. Again...this character had potential, but the writing and, quite frankly, Hadish's performance just didn't quite succeed.
What did succeed is the always excellent Elisabeth Moss as the 3rd part of this triumvirate. Her "mousy, abused housewife turned stone cold killer" was interesting to watch - especially when paired with Domhnall Gleeson's assassin about 1/2 way through the movie. I wanted to watch a movie with these 2 criminals on the run.
I've mentioned the weak writing as part the issue here, so I'll have to mention first time Veteran Writer and first-time Director Andrea Berloff as the main culprit here. She wrote STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON so she has it in her, but here, the screenplay and characterizations are "thin". Perhaps, a good Director could have made something out of this, but she also made her Directing debut with this film, so it just didn't work well enough.
This isn't a bad film, it just isn't a very good - or very interesting - one.
Letter Grade B- (for the Moss/Gleeson portion of this film)
6 stars (out of 10) and you can take that to the Bank(ofMarquis)
Alicia S (193 KP) rated Reaper (Boston Underworld, #2) in Books
Sep 28, 2018
Vinny Gorgeous: The Ugly Rise and Fall of a New York Mobster
Book
A vain man of good looks but no family ties to the Mob, Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano worked his...
The Gangbuster
Book
'Four million quid. There it was, inches away from me on a hotel table. Not in conventional...
Judge & Jury
7.4
Rate It
Book
Andie DeGrasse, an aspiring actress and single mom, is not your typical juror. Hoping to get...
Gotham Rising: New York in the 1930s
Book
New York is often described as the greatest city in the world. Yet much of the iconic architecture...
history
The Dance of the Seagull
Book
The Dance of the Seagull is the fifteenth darkly humorous adventure starring Inspector Montalbano...