The Kitchen, based on the Vertigo comic by Ollie Musters and Ming Doyle, is a wannabe female gangster film. Director Andrea Barloff (“Straight Outta Compton”) just wasn’t able to serve up the right recipe. It’s the story about the Irish mafia who controls twenty blocks of a tough New York city area nicknamed Hell’s Kitchen. The movie stars Mellisa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, Elizabeth Moss and Domhnall Gleeson. When mob wives Ruby (Haddish), Kathy (McCarthy) and Claire’s (Moss) husbands are locked up for their demented crimes, the ladies take over the business.
McCarthy has been a hit ever since “Molly and Me”. She was solid as a rock in “Identity Thief”. Then came an all time low in the puppet porn flick “The Happy Time Murders”. She can go as raunchy as she desires or vicious as could be. She probably achieved her best work in “‘Can You Ever Forgive Me”. In her choosen work, it’s a hit or miss. Her latest work here misses the target so to speak.. Tiffany Haddish has some memorable roles in “Uncle Drew” and “Night School”. Elizabeth Moss is best known for her seven year run “Mad Men”.
In “The Kitchen”, a golden opportunity for all three actress is missed. I wanted this movie to be good but it wasn’t. It’s just killing after killing with a body dismemberment taking place in the bathroom. It just stalls and simmers and you really don’t care who lives and who dies. All in all, a bad execution in the cookbook. I will say that Domhnall Gleeson as Gabriel O’Maley does a fine job being a hitman and Claire’s love interest. The movie needed to cook longer instead of taken out of the kettle before it even got hot. Anyway, the movie opens everywhere August 9 and soon might become ‘cold’ cuts’. 2 stars
