Starring Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Liam Neeson, Colin Farrell, Cynthia Erivo, Brian Tyree Henry, Daniel Kaluuya, Robert Duvall, Jon Bernthal, Garret Dillahunt, Carrie Coon, Lukas Haas, Kevin J. O’Connor

(6-Good Film)

Polished. Sprawling. Unsatisfying.

Three women-Veronica (Davis), Linda (Rodriguez), Alice (Debicki)-lose their criminal husbands and owe crime boss, Jamal Manning (Henry), a couple million dollars. To pay him, the three devise a heist based on a plan drawn by Veronica’s late husband, Harry Rawlings (Neeson), and add a fourth member, Belle (Erivo), a getaway driver once they get closer to the heist. Anyone who’s seen Widows will know that the film is about so much more than what I just described, but for me, that’s part of the problem.  There’s much too much going on. Politics, social commentary, a scene touching on police shootings, and about 4 or 5 characters too many. Even interesting characters, Belle and Robert Duvall’s Tom Mulligan, weren’t necessary. Widows has many great aspects though. Beautifully filmed and acted, the story, despite being unfocused in my eyes, does draw you in. I do think, however, that here is a rare case where a bastardized version of this plot would have been better. The film is so elegantly shot that the heist needed to be more clever. The film’s final act dedicates maybe 10 minutes to the actual heist and it’s a trainwreck. That would be fine in a grittier crime film, but this one sets up its heist and characters for too long for that haphazard ending to be satisfying.

-Walter Tyrone Howard-

(674)

Starring Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Robert De Niro, Andy Garcia, Charles Martin Smith, Patricia Clarkson

(8-Exceptional Film)

Exciting. Slick. Roaring.

Elliot Ness is the man who took down Al Capone. He’s a legend. Brian De Palma and writer, David Mamet, expand the legend in their ultra-entertaining gangster flick, The Untouchables. Ness (Costner) assembles a ragtag crew of cops-the mentor Malone (Connery), young hotshot Stone (Garcia), and meek accountant Wallace (Martin Smith)-  to go after Capone (De Niro) and his crooked empire. It’s Wallace’s income-tax idea that ultimately gets the job done. The Untouchables takes several liberties with the story, and Connery takes considerable liberty with the Chicago Irishman accent. In fact, The Untouchables features just about every cop and gangster cliché you can think of. I say it works for that reason. It’s a fantastic piece of pop entertainment: thrilling, suspenseful, dramatic. I also see a lesson to be learned in Connery’s performance: making no attempt whatsoever to do a realistic accent is less distracting than doing a bad accent. So if you aren’t going to get the accent right (Keanu Reeves in Dracula), then you might as well not even try. I got over his Scottish accent pretty quickly, and he’s awfully charismatic.

-Walter Tyrone Howard-

(325)