Widows (2018)
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Widows Movie Review
Widows is a 2018 heist thriller film directed by Steve McQueen and starring Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez and Elizabeth Debicki. It’s a pretty strong film.
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“We’re the only ones who have the balls to pull this off“
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It follows a group of women who attempt a heist in order to pay back a crime boss after their criminal husbands are killed on a failed job. It’s a killer premise mostly well utilized and it’s a feminist spin on the usual heist flick and thus it was more entertaining and interesting for me.
The movie deals with a lot of issues with the most prominent one being excessive crime in Chicago. The city was so realistically portrayed as a seedy town and I liked its seriousness and darkness at the core of the flick. It also has many memorable scenes with the heist and ending being great as well as their assembling.
But the build-up took way too long and some of the scenes I personally would have cut off, though admittedly the character development was thus much stronger than in your usual heist flick. Yes, every character here is very solidly developed with the highlights being the three women, of whom only Rodriguez’ character needed more work.
But Elizabeth Debicki is very memorable, in her great height alone. Viola Davis is awesome as she always is and she excelled in this badass female role and especially in those emotional sequences. Cynthia Erivo isn’t as good as she was in ‘Bad Times at the El Royale’, but is still effective. Daniel Kaluuya plays a solid villain, but Colin Farrell needed more screen time.
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The main problem in Widows is its structure and unwillingness to choose one thing. It plays as both a political drama and a heist thriller and it fails to be cohesive in connecting the two genres. I liked the latter, but the former needed a better script. The pacing is also slow at first and the heist should have been longer, but still the characterization, direction from Steve McQueen and especially the dialogue are stellar. And the dark atmosphere in the movie is very well pulled off.
Widows unsuccessfully tries to mix the political drama and heist thriller elements and only in the latter it succeeds. The build-up and runtime are overlong, but the direction is strong, the themes are relevant, the atmosphere is intriguingly dark and the heist itself is excellent. The characterization is also surprisingly strong for this type of flick and Viola Davis is per usual superb in her terrific role.
