The Kitchen  ★★½

CRIME drama The Kitchen is a good example of an interesting idea going off the rails.

Set in New York’s Hell Kitchen in the late 1970s, it’s the story of three women who attempt to take over an organised crime operation after their husbands are imprisoned.

The husbands have been responsible for managing parts of the operation but once they leave the wives find themselves being squeezed out by both the bosses and others keep to replace their husbands.

Cut off financially and growing increasingly desperate they decide their only solution, rather than using the opportunity to go straight and protect their families, is to fight their own way to the top.

From there, it becomes more and more unclear as to what this 2019 film is trying to say.

The directorial debut of Andrea Berloff, who also wrote the film, it initially seems to be examining how different and/or better the women are at managing the business, providing a better balance of strength and emotion.

But gradually it seems to decide the women are just as bad as the men in terms of being susceptible to the adage of absolute power corrupting absolutely.

And, in one particularly confusing character arc, a woman goes from domestic abuse victim to enthusiastic contract killer in a short amount of screen time.

It’s based on a comic book miniseries and perhaps that is why there are such wild fluctuations in tone and approach that keep popping up to confuse and frustrate the audience.

Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss are all decent in the lead roles and there is good support from the likes of Domhnall Gleeson, James Badge Dale, Common and Bill Camp.

Particularly effective is Gleeson’s turn as a disturbed war veteran turned contract killer who was eventually banished from New York by his mob bosses for being too callous and uncontrollable, even for them.

When the women take over he returns and ends up becoming mentor and love interest to one of them. Even though most of his scenes have the same wavering tone, the matter-of-fact performance works well.

While the film has several scenes featuring either strong violence or emotional conflict, the technical choices in direction, photography and editing don’t intensify the experience, instead creating too much distance between characters and action and the audience.

It’s an authentic film on the surface, just not in the most important aspects of character motivation and action.