Widows

So I have a list of movies I need to review. It is finals time so a lot of that stuff is getting thrown on the back burner. That being said I do have some good movies that I will review and publish maybe sometime this week. But I went and saw Widows last night so I thought I'd knock this one out right away while its still fresh. Also this is a great movie so I didn't really want to wait.

I saw the trailer for Widows a while back and I knew it was a movie I wanted to watch as soon as I got the opportunity. This was before I knew that the guy who directed 12 Years a Slave directed this one, I just saw the plot, the cast, and the trailer and I knew this was something I needed to check out. I need to kick myself out the door more often and get to movies in the theater but yesterday I had someone to go with so we decided we wanted to see Widows.

Widows follows the story of Veronica Rawlings (played by Viola Davis). She is married to a criminal named Harry (played by Liam Neeson) who at the start of the film is killed during a heist with his usual crew (one of which is played by Jon Bernthal, he's only in the first five minutes of the movie but it's always fun pointing him out because I think he's incredibly underrated). Veronica wasn't involved in Harry's criminal business at all and lived a comfortable life.

But one day a crime boss who is also running for office named Jamal Manning (played by Brian Tyree Henry) comes to visit her and tells her that her husband robbed him out of two million dollars and he expects her to pay him back.

The rest of the movie is Veronica getting a small group made up of the widows of Harry's crew together to pull off another heist in order to pay off Manning and get enough money for all of them to live comfortably after the death of their husbands.

Like I said, this set up from the beginning when I watched the trailer sounded really interesting to me but Steve McQueen was able to make a movie that had me hanging on every scene and every word.

I was emotionally invested in all of these characters, especially the women running this heist. Michelle Rodriguez and Elizabeth Debicki play two of the other widows but they all have their own different background. Veronica lived in leisure but Michelle Rodriguez's character was struggling to make ends meet even when her husband was alive. Elizabeth Debicki's character was in a dependent abusive relationship and when her husband (Jon Bernthal) dies, she doesn't really have any where else to go. All of these women come together to pull off a heist that none of them are skilled or qualified to do. Yeah the heist at the end of the day isn't the bank heist in Heat, but once you dig into these characters, you realize that they're just making this stuff up as they go and struggling to do the stuff that their husbands, hardened criminals, would usually do.

The focus of this movie is mainly on the planning of the heist and less on the heist itself. The heist maybe takes up 10 minutes near the end of the film and like I said, it's not a super elaborate heist. But because they're focusing so much on the planning, you delve into the relationships building between the characters, the politics, especially between Jamal Manning and his opponent Jack Mulligan (played by Colin Farrell), and McQueen throws in some pretty poignant commentary.

Just a note on the commentary because its really hard to miss. While its pretty obvious, I never felt like it was ham fisted in there. This movie is about the characters and since this is a pretty diverse cast, there are some issues that McQueen addresses. Race, gender, abuse, poverty. It's there. And in my opinion its done well because it focuses on the characters and the human aspect of the film.

That human aspect is only possible through a great cast and even the people who are in small roles do a great job. Viola Davis of course is a power house. Elizabeth Debicki and Michelle Rodriguez were really good. I really thought for as small of a role Colin Farrell was playing, I thought it was nuanced and fascinating, especially when you look at the role of race in a place like Chicago. Robert Duvall is in this film and he's really good at being a person you hate from the get go. And Liam Neeson gives a good performance in the small role he has. Carrie Coon is in this movie and you might know her from The Leftovers. She's got a small role that is a little bit confusing, which I will talk about later, but I liked her as well. And all of them come together to make a film that was a lot of fun.

I do want to talk about Brian Tyree Henry and Daniel Kaluuya because I found the dynamic I got from them was very interesting. So Brian Tyree Henry plays a crime boss who is running for office. Daniel Kaluuya plays his brother who is basically an enforcer. So the way its set up is that Daniel Kaluuya is supposed to be the intimidating killer while Brian Tyree Henry sits back and plays the bigger political game.

The weird thing is that while I found both their performances great, I actually found Brian Tyree Henry more compelling and threatening in this movie based on one scene. Daniel Kaluuya kills some people in this film and is creepy in how intimidating he can be. But there is one scene where Brian Tyree Henry comes to tell Viola Davis that he wants his money back and in that five minute scene, I was so much more intimidated by his character than I was by Daniel Kaluuya. Maybe it was the fact that he was threatening her dog but I think its a matter of what you show and don't show. Again, I liked them both, I think they both did a great job, I just found the two different approaches fascinating.

The last thing I'll gush about this movie on is the cinematography.  The way this movie was shot was very much an element of story telling and it was done beautifully. There is one scene in particular where a car is driving away and the camera is set on the hood. You don't see the characters talking but you hear them and the shot does the rest. I won't give it away, but there are a couple of scenes like that that really make this movie one that I'm going to remember for a while.

One criticism I will have of this movie is that everything is happening so fast and you REALLY need to be paying attention to get at least one of the plot points. Again, I won't spoil it, but there is one character at the end that while I liked their performance, I was a little confused on their plan and it took me a little bit out of the final drama that I think was supposed to be really emotional.

I like a lot about Colin Farrell in this movie but the focus is definitely not on him and some of his political dealings kind of get lost in the wind. Does that take away from the broader picture of the movie? No I don't think so. Overall, its not hard to follow this movie there are just a few things that I ended up looking on the Wikipedia page to clarify because it wasn't as clear as I would have preferred.

But overall, Widows is a great film. It's that time of year where we start thinking about awards season and I really hope this one gets some buzz. I don't think it'll win a whole lot, especially considering some of the other films out there this year. But I hope it at least gets some mentions. Regardless, it is one that you should definitely check out.

But what did you think of Widows? Are there any movies out there that I need to see in preparation for award season? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading.