Widows
Caught this yesterday morning and I walked out pretty satisfied. The trailers made had me hyped and I couldn't wait to see this cast in action, and the performances do not disappoint at all. One of my biggest issues with the movie and it's more of a personal one than something I think that is actually technically wrong with the movie is the lack of screen time for the main characters husbands. Now before you attack me for saying "Oh well the movie is called Widows, so of course they'd not be in it that long". I know. We get so little time with the characters and their significant others it's hard to feel the Widows' pain at the start. Liam Neeson and Viola get the most backstory and it works for the most part. Would have loved a separate film with Neeson and his crew (which includes a criminally wasted Jon Bernthal).
Anyways the core cast, our titular Widows, are all fantastic. Viola Davis and Elizabeth Debicki are standouts but Cynthia Erivo and Michelle Rodriguez both do great work as well. I would have like a bit more fleshing out with Erivo's character because she just kind of shows up and gets involved in the plan and it doesn't feel organic at all. She plays a great part though as part of the crew. As for supporting characters we got Daniel Kaluuya as an enforcer for his brother played by Brian Tyree Henry (from Atlanta) and Kaluuya does amazing stuff here with his psychotic character. I loved his scenes. We get some good stuff with Collin Farrell and Robert Duvall. A big problem is that a lot of the supporting cast doesn't get a ton to do and there are a couple of storylines that don't even wrap up by the time the credits roll which bugged me. Carrie Coon is part of the films twist and she's ultimately wasted as well and that storyline never goes anywhere. I would assume the movie has a ton on the cutting room floor that was cut to bring down the runtime because I can't imagine certain stories didn't have an ending ever scripted.
The heist that it leads up too is good but not as intense as I would have hoped. The planning stage is good but the heist itself didn't lead up to what the movie was building towards. I'd say this movie is elevated by it's performances for sure and if not for those this movie might not be as good. Definitely worth the watch though.
