Critic Reviews

Speaking of female gangsters, no review of The Kitchen should overlook Margo Martindale, who steals every scene she’s in as a mob matriarch — a gravelly voiced monster with a gutter mouth and a big photo of John F. Kennedy on her wall. Martindale gets to be evil and has as much fun onscreen as she can without smiling.

At its most basic, this is a conventional talkie, rooted in Warner Bros crime history, happy to play with cliché. At its most audacious, The Kitchen is a welcome flip on the generally male-dominated script. And at its most pleasing, this is a popcorn flick, with big moments, great pops, and three stars giving it their all, having one out in the street, making big moves for the people.

The gender politics are as appealing as the rock-solid trio of lead actors (Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss), even when the movie itself proves less than persuasive.

Its big idea, though vague, is at least a fascinating curiosity. But with its jumble of clichés, its blatant word-bubble declarations, and its hectically rushed impracticalities, the movie—which is based on a comic-book series—invites an air of antic exaggeration and revved-up stylization. It hints frustratingly, throughout, at a comedic impulse that the direction of its actors suppresses.

Despite some major narrative missteps, the film’s bold twist on the mob drama still has a refreshing quality. Maybe The Kitchen would have fared better as a series, with more time for its potential material to simmer.

The Kitchen has a good cast and strong premise, but it never quite finds its footing and falls into gangster cliches.

As the picture sputters and stalls, losing its quick pace and brutal efficiency in the later acts, this comic book adaptation reveals the flaws in its execution, if not its very origins.

It gets to the point where it hardly matters to us who lives and who dies, because they’re all stone-cold killers.

The Kitchen may prove to be a meaningful time-capsule document, but is far less successful as broad entertainment.

What's missing in this Kitchen is heat. A B-movie summer diversion at best, it's more a collection of genre tropes than an involving crime drama.