Steve McQueen's WIDOWS (2018)

xxp sure, speaking for myself I realised “the heist isn’t the point” but if you admit the political stuff feels like window dressing... what are you left with

I feel like all of us were expecting something a lot less insipid, from the cast if not necessarily the director

i loved this and am baffled by the generally negative reactions here

well not baffled but surprised to see the consensus be so negative

ya this was good

needed a better director / cinematographer

I found this exciting and not terrible but have never seen a heist movie on big screen before so that might account for it.

I'd prob have preferred the women to be more capable and hard because I assume real life wives of career criminals must be, right?

this movie rocks!

can see some of the criticisms above, but I thought the acting was good all around, and often sold some of the less sketched-out characters, like Brian Tyree Henry's. I liked it a fair bit though probably would have preferred it as a miniseries where they could better draw out the political storylines, which felt nearly dropped in the last third of this movie

The bonus for Chicago folks is that the locations are untouched and un-designed. I worked for both the hotels that get featured and can say it is as if they just brought in the cameras and shot. Same with the Union League Club, Fireside Bowl, and so on.

Best Chicago movie since Risky Business and would make a good double feature with that one.

No reason for this to be 120 minutes + or why so much of it plodded or why the dialogue was so overwrought, including every scene in which Colin Farrell was the focus. A slick, intelligent hack like Harold Becker or Joseph Ruben might've given this more flair and tautness. Agree that Kaluuya was underused, but I assume the film went into production while Get Out was in release.

I would so have watched this as a mini-series.

A miniseries would presumably have been dragged out a lot longer than 120 minutes though.

It might've breathed with more space. I don't mind a movie with several plots, but this one hinted on "Meanwhile, back at Justice League headquarters" transitions.

hinted = hinged

The fact that they used Liam Neeson in the movie kinda gives away the big twist, doesn’t it? Like I spent a lot of the first half wondering why they’d use such a big name actor only to kill him off in the first minute...then Viola says something like “30 years...and he’s NEVER made one mistake...”

Btw was there any explanation as to why Robert Duvall was still in the house the night of the debate?

maybe because his son told him he couldn't wait for him to die

This was amazing! Sorta reminded me of The Town but better. Zimmer’s most interesting score for a while too.

I was a little disappointed, expected/wanted more about the women's relationship and less about the machinations of powerful men. Got the feeling it was trying to be somewhat Wire-esque but without the scope of a series it bordered on muddled and unfocused. Nicely shot, acted etc, the heist was quite exciting.

I thought this was great, also surprised by the negative reactions, particularly this one:

"Saw this today; it's about a 2.5 out of 5. It's a half hour too long, with a lot of pointless digressions (Lukas Haas's character should not have gotten a second scene, and Viola Davis and Liam Neeson didn't need a dead son, never mind Carrie Coon's "role"). And how do you make a heist movie without one montage? Davis is good, but Elizabeth Debicki gets most of the best scenes."

Almost every sentence in this is wrong! It's hardly too long, and Neeson and Davis' dead son and Carrie Coon's part are basically reason everything happened the way it did. I do agree that Debicki got a lot of the great scenes and she was really good in it. I kept wondering also if she was incredibly tall or everyone else was just short (she's 6' 3" it turns out).