Directed by Steve McQueen

Screenplay by Gillian Flynn and Steve McQueen

Starring: Viola Davis, Liam Neeson, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Colin Farrell, Daniel Kaluuya, Robert Duvall

I’d gone this whole year without experiencing a movie so bad I wanted to walk out on it. Last year, it was Alien Covenant and The Dark Tower that were the absolute worst films I sat through. Tonight, I saw one of the worst movies of 2018. And it was from the last filmmaker that I expected it. But I’m just going to go ahead and call Steve McQueen’s Widows the worst movie of 2018 (so far as I have seen) because it really is just such a cynical and betraying piece against its female stars.

Billed as some kind of women empowerment popcorn drama, Widows instead goes against everything it pathetically claims to be standing for. You’d think a movie about 3 women strangers who are connected only by their husband’s deaths from their criminal lives would instantly be compelling. But this is one of the biggest pieces of shit of all time. And the problem is WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED. The oscar winning director of 12 Years a Slave, and Gillian Flynn (who wrote Gone Girl) team up to do unimaginable damage to the minority groups they desperately preach to support.

I can’t fucking believe a movie is trying this hard to tell us how women can be strong and powerful, but then has all the women in this movie be nothing but empty placeholders for forced dialogue. How can this movie star all women yet constantly remind us how they only know what they know and have what they have because of the former men in their lives? And those intentionally mystical flashbacks involving Liam Neeson. I’ve never seen a movie work so hard to confuse its audience. And unbelievable that later on a reveal involving Neeson’s character comes that is so bad that people in our theater walked out in droves tonight. I shit you not.

This movie blindsided me. It suckerpunched and beat me into painful submission for ever having hoped for anything good to come out of it. And you know, the opening of this movie is amazing. The first minute of it may be among the best I have ever seen to start a story. But instantly, everything evaporates. I will try to explain.

The plot. I’m going mainly use the actor’s real life names rather than their characters because I don’t remember most of them. And I don’t give a shit. Liam Neeson and Viola Davis are married. Neeson is actually a criminal who pulls off “advanced” heists (that he keeps track of in a handy notepad!!). He’s killed in the opening of the film, along with his 3 other buddies. Davis is heartbroken. She also works for the teacher’s union. She is now widowed.

The other three now widowed women are Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, and someone named Amanda? I think? Who was she? I saw her in a scene earlier on and then forgot she existed. Then Viola summons her for coffee, then she is in one key scene. Did anyone know who she was?

Nevermind. Some crime boss named Jamal Manning is running for office in Chicago, against Colin Farrell, whose family has historically held the position. This is important because Neeson’s last heist was for $2 million, which he stole from Manning. Manning comes knocking on Viola’s door for the money.

And man, just look at how he handles Viola’s dog. Look at how the movie manipulates you into thinking he will kill it, but then he squeezes it by the neck, looks like? And it squeals. And I cringed because it’s just so pitiful for a movie to go this low for such a fucking stupid moment. Manning gives her 1 month to repay the debt.

Viola finds Neeson’s old notebook, which details all his old heists, and his next one, for $5 million. But what is this future heist? I’ll tell you at the end, like this movie does. She gets the contact info of her husband’s friends who died in the heist with him. And that’s how she hits up all the widows. They need money too, for reasons I don’t care to elaborate on. I really don’t.

But I’ll say they meet in a steam room. And Viola threatens them if they don’t help her. You’d think the promise of a cash payout would be enough, but whatever. They agree, and I could not even tell you why they do. Michelle Rodriguez, who I usually like, is bad here. And given no character. She has kids. Her husband’s dead. She no longer owns that store she had the lease on. Oh well.

But there’s Elizabeth, the tall blonde. Who sticks out awkwardly in every shot because she is at least 6 inches taller than everyone around her. She was the only good actress in this trash. I don’t recognize her from anything but man, if she can salvage this useless role I can’t wait to see what she can do with a great one. She is the one married to Jon Bernthal’s character, killed in the opening as well. And why is Jon Bernthal, the Punisher himself even IN this movie? He has all of 20 seconds of screen time. But he beats Elizabeth. But I guess he supported her too, so when he dies she has nothing. What is this movie trying to say?

She becomes some sort of escort, and strikes up a strange relationship with some short guy who pays for her services. Later on he’s the one who figures out random blueprints they have are of a safe, for the last heist. I’m describing this to you as the movie did for me so if it doesn’t make sense it’s because it doesn’t make sense.

And there’s Daniel Kaluuya, the everyman. Who is so likable, but here is a loose psychopath. And though I enjoyed an early scene with him in a basketball court, he amounts to nothing in later passages. When he started stabbing a paraplegic through his legs in a bowling alley I knew it was doomed.

Now, Rodriguez trusts her kids with a babysitter she hires from a random service. Never met her before, but leaves her with her kids for a few hours so she can go meet up with the other widows to keep planning the heist. Smart woman. And that random babysitter is a barber. She becomes their driver. Believe me, that’s all there is to it. And somehow she gets to give Viola flack about how she speaks to her when she joins the crew. I have no idea who the fuck any of these people are even supposed to be.

It is a sad state of things when I do not care about the outcome of a film. It almost never happens for me. Usually there is something I am invested in. Even bad movies I usually want to see how they turn out. But Widows is so offensively composed that halfway through I noted I didn’t give a shit about anyone. And the twist with Neeson is a nail on the coffin of this excuse of a picture. And wait till you see what happens with his son, it is a tone deaf, 100% contrived nonsensical apparition of phony gusted up hatred. Widows tries so hard to shove message after message down our throats, but can’t even discern what it’s saying. A black guy and a white woman wrote this script, and it comes across as something a white dude thinks black people and women want to hear.

Consider a line in the barber shop between that babysitter lady and her friend. “I’m a female minority and I needed money for my business! Who else was going to help me?!”. Who the fuck talks like this? Or look at the scene where Elizabeth calls Viola the C word. “Don’t you dare call me that” Viola shouts. She slaps her. Elizabeth slaps her back. Oh shit, it’s finally getting intense and meaningful! NO, they’re hugging now?! Wait why are they crying!??!

In a moment put on blast in all the trailers, Viola randomly tells the crew, “Because no one believes we have the balls to pull this off.” My friend and I held back laughter. The only people who think these women can’t pull off a heist are the people who made this movie. And it has no balls. All cowardice. In this world women are not allowed to make mistakes, or to betray each other, or to die, or do anything without the help of a man they were once married to. Shame on the filmmakers. They’re trying so hard to be Heat and Set it Off. But remember what happened to DeNiro in Heat. Remember what happened to the female leads in Set it Off. Those films had the courage of their convictions. And told honest and real stories involving crime and the working classes. Widows can go fuck itself.

Here we have 3 women who only have met each other because of their dead husband’s friendships. And they all get along. And the random babysitter she hires ends up being their getaway driver. And there are no real problems between the 4 of them because I guess women can’t be complicated and deep characters onscreen. Does anyone remember how DeNiro fucks up in Heat? He had a random in Waingro. Look what happened to his entire team because of it.

Viola Davis becomes a mastermind because this movie is a joke. I dare you not to laugh your ass off at the scene involving weighted soil. Somehow she has all the answers, because of Neeson’s book. And not because she did anything on her own.

The heist at the end. Oh boy. I didn’t even know what they were robbing. Did you know it was a politician’s house? That it was Colin Farrell’s place? And let me ask you, when an old guy pulls a gun on 3 armed strangers robbing him, do all 3 just magically drop their guns? Does that look real to you? And of course the codes on the sticky pad are upside down. Way to put us on the edge of our seat movie!

I hate this fucking piece of trash. 91% on Rt. 277 paid, professional morons recommending decent people this filth. They outta be ashamed of themselves too. More proof this system must be done away with. They were all paid off in some fashion, or saw Steve McQueen’s name and that cast and auto filled out a positive review before finishing the film. Fuck them all.

Subjectively, I despise this movie. Objectively, it is one of the weakest, dumbest, and most boring movies with an A list cast and crew ever made. Do not listen to any person that recommends it to you, they never finished watching it, that I promise you.

The end is horribly stupid, because of course it is. I have nothing against Viola Davis but sometimes she tries way too hard, especially in this movie. She never worked for me once in the whole runtime, and ironically I enjoyed her more in Suicide Squad. Her showdown in the climax had the audience rolling, and no one should have been laughing at all.

This isn’t a heist movie. I’m not even sure it’s a movie. It’s some poor venture into preaching without inspiring. You’ve got to have reasons to make something like this. You can’t just say things for no reason McQueen and Flynn, NO YOU CANNOT.

AND OH GOD that extended talking scene with the pastor. It comes across as painfully stereotypical, and I would instantly call it racist if a white guy directed it. Holy shit.

The entire sound team of this movie should have been fired. This movie sounds horrible after that incredible opening. The audio is at times out of snyc, and a big portion of the dialogue is ADR, really bad ADR. Sean Bobbit was the DP, and Hans Zimmer did the music, two hard hitters in the industry. I can’t criticize the cinematography or the music because I barely noticed it. The script and editing and sound was so spectacularly bad I couldn’t. Widows does look good I suppose. But who cares. It’s a miserable movie with a miserable execution and miserable story. And Colin Farrell sucks in this. And Robert Duvall is so bad it looks like he’s messing up his lines that he’s reading on a cue card next to the camera. And that whole election that the movie wastes most of our time on is concluded through audio on a radio in a barbershop. And that final rotating camera ending on a smile made me want to scream.

I hate this movie more than any single movie I have seen in all of 2018. I hate the Rotten Tomatoes critics even more after tonight for their shameful promotion of such a damaging and backwards film. Fire them all. Start from scratch. Vet the people when they write dishonest reviews. Earlier this month I severely disliked Bohemian Rhapsody but that is a masterpiece compared to Widows.

There is one great scene in Widows. In comes somewhere in the first half hour I think. Colin Farrell and his assistant argue about his campaign, and Farrell throws out hateful and racist statistics about Chicago. As he does, the camera remains planted on the hood of the car, and shows the neighborhoods as the driver takes them around. It obscures the faces of those in the car. But slowly, it pans over to show the driver, who is black, and then plants itself pointing at the other side as the car continues driving. The visuals here contrast the audio, as we see nothing but colorful and peaceful neighborhoods and people. And not the plagued city with  “34 shootings just last week!” that Farrell is screaming about. I was moved. That’s how you do it. Still the worst movie of the year.