The Kitchen

(MA15+) ★★

Director: Andrea Berloff.

Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, Elisabeth Moss, Domhnall Gleeson, Brian d'Arcy James, James Badge Dale, Wayne Duvall, Jeremy Bobb, Bill Camp, Margo Martindale, Common, E.J. Bonilla.

They thought the kitchen was bad until they saw ... the conservatory!

I've often said that instead of remaking great films, Hollywood should be remaking disappointing films. Why do-over something that's already a classic - why not realise the unfulfilled potential of a missed opportunity?

The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Dark Knight Rises and Assassin's Creed are a couple of prime examples. And I'm going to add The Kitchen to that list. Its great characters, excellent premise and strong themes go begging courtesy to a haphazard delivery that never gives its characters, premise or themes time to shine.

Based on a Vertigo graphic novel series, The Kitchen is the story of three wives in New York's Hell's Kitchen who are left behind when their Irish mobster husbands go to jail for a robbery. Unsatisfied with the way the Irish mob looks after them while their fellas are locked up, Kathy (McCarthy), Ruby (Haddish) and Claire (Moss) decide to take a slice of the pie for themselves.

Soon they're running the Irish mob's protection racket and going head-to-head with the Mafia. But are they in over their heads?

This film has so much going for it. A killer cast with meaty roles, some awesome themes of female empowerment, power and corruption, plus a strong plot that gives its characters solid arcs. So where does it all go so wrong?

According to this post from John August's excellent screenwriting blog, the average scene length is about three minutes long at most, or between one to three for a Harry Potter film, as the reader's question notes. For The Kitchen, the average scene length appears to be less than one minute.

Obviously it's not every scene, but it's damned-near most of them and it gives the story a rushed quality, as if the filmmakers were racing to the end, like a four-year-old recounting their day - "this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened, and then this....". Scenes are never given time to breathe - instead characters get a few lines each, then bam, onto the next set.

While this is fine at first and allows for a quick set-up of the story, the film's "quickly, quickly" approach eventually grinds. For a story that often feels like it's begging to be a TV series, this is particularly bewildering and frustrating. The richness of the characters and their individual arcs are compressed into an endless barrage of short sequences, giving the entire film the feeling of a montage.

This not only messes with the pacing of the film, it also means we are unable to absorb some of the finer details of the story, rendering a "twist" ending ineffective. It also sucks much of the pathos out of the characters, voiding so much good work done by McCarthy, Haddish and Moss, who are all excellent. When key characters end up at the wrong end of a pistol, it's hard to feel anything because the relentless pacing has pulled the necessary emotion from the story.

It also ruins The Kitchen's potential for dark comedy. There are a couple of nice moments that start to summon up some black humour, but the film doesn't have the patience to linger or commit to the darkness, or indeed any particular tone.

It's a big disappointment from a story and characters with so much potential. The cast's good work and the great production design just makes it all the more frustrating.

Maybe we can get the TV series this deserves in 10 years time. But for now, a visit to The Kitchen is only going to get you a rushed, unsatisfying meal.