Back in 2011, there was an action drama titled Sucker Punch. It was a film co-written and directed by Zach Snyder about a group of wrongfully imprisoned women plotting an escape from a mental institution. There's too much other stuff involved in that movie to explain in full here, but the main reason I bring it up is that it shares a significant and fundamental flaw with Widows. Both films are under the impression that they are empowering to women by placing them in uber masculine situations performing tasks that short-sighted jackass men could never allow them to be in. All the while portraying all of the woman characters as victims and all of the male characters as misogynistic thugs. While I do not deny that, even today, there is a severely outdated perception of women as inferior, and that really needs to change, movies like this are not the way to go about accomplishing that. They are just going to make everyone even angrier, and less likely believe that change is possible.
Based on the mini-series of the same title created by Lynda La Plante, and loosely based on the TV movie Perfect Gentlemen directed by Jackie Cooper, the story follows a group or women from different backgrounds whos husbands, as it turns out, were all part of the same group of professional thieves. After a failed heist where they stole a large sum of money from a former drug dealer now turned politician and consequently got killed for it, the women are forced to take on their husbands debts and pay it back in one month. Against all the odds, the women take it upon themselves to find and steal the money back so they can shake off the misdeeds of their lost husbands and start a new life for themselves.
This film is probably the most frustrating one I have had to review this year. On the one hand, I really appreciate what it's trying to do. It has a relevant story, timely commentary about the false perceptions of women, and offers the whole cast the opportunity to shine through and show off their "A" material, which they all deliver in spades. However, I can't help but feel that all of that good stuff is rendered moot by the film's overall execution. Sure, the film is competently shot, the dialogue has music to it, and the overall message of not treating women like crap is always appreciated, but none of that ever really hits the mark.
The biggest problem with this movie is that it has no likable characters. Yes, we can sympathize and even empathize with the women in their troubling situations, but aside from that, none of them really have anything resembling a likable personality. They're either angry all the time or are continually being victimized in one way or another. Not that they don't have any right be mad about their unfortunate circumstances, but we can only look at everyone's scowling face for so long. Every single character in this movie is either so vile that we don't want to be around them or so one note that we lose any interest in latching on to them. It is yet another case of mistaking bleakness for seriousness.
I genuinely wanted to like this movie, and I honestly hoped it would be a shining ray of hope for women in cinema. Sadly, that is not the case here. What may have started out as an earnest attempt to elevate women in cinema has somehow mutated into an underwhelming and ugly mess. It is a sad waste of great talent, and I hope that everyone involved has better projects on the horizon.
Is this movie worth seeing?
No
Is it worth seeing in theaters?
No
Why?
It is a perfect idea for a story that is trampled on by too much aggressive bleakness mistaken for greatness. In other words, this year's Logan. Skip it.
Ladies & gentlemen, I am TheNorm, thank you for reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment