Widows Review – Spoiler Free
Widows is a film which comes directed by Steve McQueen who some may know as the director is 12 Years A Slave (2013). It stars Viola Davis, Liam Neeson, Jon Bernthal, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Robert Duvall and Colin Farrell. The film is an action thriller about 4 women who inherit quite a bit of debt from their dead husbands and are under pressure to pay it all back.
When I went in to the see this movie, I was super excited about it. I haven’t seen too many Steve McQueen movies, but am aware of how great a director he is and when looking at the cast, we have a substantial amount of great actors in this film. Being a massive Liam Neeson fan, I was already sold on the experience, but basically every other cast member in this film is an added bonus.
After viewing the film I felt that the performances were all excellent. Viola Davis was exceptionally good in her role as the lead character, Veronica. I thought that Veronica was a tough character to play, but Viola really did impress in both the action scenes and the more dramatic ones. I also really enjoyed both Michelle Rodriguez and Elizabeth Debicki in this film and both excelled with their strong female characters. Liam Neeson was also excellent and his character in this film I think will be one that will surprise many people. I certainly was surprised by the end.
The story in this is pretty good. Essentially the plot of the film is that each of the women characters’ husbands dies in a heist mission early in the film as they were robbing a criminal organisation. It then falls on Veronica (Viola Davis), Linda (Michelle Rodriguez) and Alice (Elizabeth Debicki) to pay back the money to the criminals their husbands owe it to, or some very bad things are going to happen to them. Watching these women scramble to deal with this and figure everything out was quite good. The tone of the film was quite dark and serious, making Widows a thrilling and dark experience.
I thought that Steven McQeen did well in this film to keep the tone dark throughout it, but also maintain a sense of mystery with the plot. To be honest with you all, this is one of the few films this year that did actually surprise me and towards the end things definitely escalate and it gets good.
For people going in to see this, this week for an action experience. I’d say the film certainly does deliver on that. It’s not on the level of say something like The Equalizer 2, it’s a little less than that. But there are some decent action scenes in Widows. But I’d say that the film is more dialogue heavy and more thriller based with a lot more story telling (which I loved) than pure action sequences. It was well balanced though between the two and I think the way the story was told led to the experience of Widows being the good one that it was, characters were able to develop and we were able to get great performances from all of the cast members as result.
Overall I’d say that Widows is certainly a film worth seeing at the cinema this weekend. The cast of actors including Viola Davis, Liam Neeson, Jon Bernthal, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Robert Duvall and Colin Farrell is enough of a reason to check this one out and Steve McQueen directing as well gives you another reason to give this one a chance. The film definitely won’t disappoint, it has some solid action moments but it’s in the storytelling where Widows excels. I really enjoyed it and when I came out of the cinema on the day, I thought it was one of the better film experiences of 2018.
