Review: The Kitchen

Title: The Kitchen

Release Date: August 9, 2019

Director: Andrea Berloff

Starring: Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, Elisabeth Moss, Domhnall Gleeson, James Badge Dale, Brian d’Arcy James, Margo Martindale, Common, and Bill Camp

Review: This is probably going to be one of the shortest reviews I’ve ever written because I really don’t have a lot to say on this movie. It’s kind of just meh. I’m forgetting it more and more as time goes on. I only saw it a couple of hours ago and it’s already almost gone. But, I can’t really be blamed for it either. I’m sure even the stars have forgotten they made it. It even seems like the writers forgot about it and just kind of typed “The End” to send it to the producers. This is destined to be a trivia question that someone gets wrong on Jeopardy. Then, one person watching at home will go “Oh yeah. I forgot Melissa McCarthy was in a gangster movie.” That’s this movie’s future.

You know what’s odd? This movie feels very low stakes. I never worried about anything happening to any of these characters, even though there’s a lot of death featured. It’s not afraid to kill major characters either but it kind of just happens. We never get any sort of emotional payoff. People just get shot. We see a funeral. Then the plot moves on. It’s super strange. Actually, I’m pretty sure this movie has more funeral scenes than any I’ve seen before. There’s at least like four of them. And each one has that generic “we need to talk” moments outside. It’s super hoaky. But, that’s kind of just how this movie is. Things happen. There’s no reaction. And then more things happen. It’s like they adapted a Wikipedia article of a decent crime movie into a separate movie. It has all of the plot with none of the heart.

There’s only one other thing I feel like pointing out in this forgettable flick that’s destined for the five dollar movie bin in the next couple weeks. Most of the cast does a decent enough job. But… strangely, Domhnall Gleeson, who I absolutely have loved in everything else, is boring as hell here. It’s like he signed up for a gangster movie. Read the script. And then was like “I’m just not going to act in this. I’m going to stand over here quietly as the camera rolls. I really don’t feel like trying for this meh of a movie.” And that’s fair. It’s just disappointing because I expected things to elevate once he showed up and they definitely didn’t.

TL;DR: I’ve kind of already forgotten this movie. Nothing felt like it mattered. And, they introduced me to my first bad Domhnall Gleeson performance, which is a feat in it’s own right.

Score: 2 Stars (I didn’t like it.)