The characters are all one-dimensional, the attempts at catharsis feel canned.

| Feb 15, 2020

The problem with it is that it's incredibly unbalanced in the way that it doesn't ever know how to exactly deal with the sort of the tougher subject matter, the violence, which it deals with.

| Sep 23, 2019

Moss, somehow, retains her dignity but McCarthy and Haddish are made to look like amateurs. I'm a fan of both women. Get me outta this kitchen.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 22, 2019

[A] thuddingly inept crime picture.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Sep 22, 2019

It's a tonal mess, occasionally parody-poor (a hilarious amount of deadpan funeral scenes) and frequently makes no sense, especially when Moss's mousy Claire becomes a bloodthirsty killing machine.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Sep 20, 2019

The shallowness of the depiction would matter less if the story made a modicum of sense.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 20, 2019

This underdog story puts a gun to the head of sexism, and isn't afraid to pull the trigger.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 20, 2019

Everyone tries. Unfortunately, the leads appear to believe they're in three very different films.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 19, 2019

This gangland thriller is fearless drivel and therefore obdurately enjoyable.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 18, 2019

All three leads are strong and the script crackles with stirring girl-power lines from writer-turned-director Andrea Berloff. Still, her attempt to mix shockingly dark, gritty violence with bouncy comedy leaves a bitter aftertaste.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 18, 2019

The Kitchen flits through scenes, coming across as its own trailer rather than a full movie. And it makes disappointing use of its great components, wasting three chewy, thoughtful core performances.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 16, 2019

Its hodgepodge mix of styles and tones isn't genre-defying, it's the mark of a movie that either started with a terrible script or lost any sense of coherence in the editing suite

| Original Score: 1/5 | Sep 10, 2019

[It] falls short when it comes to background, plot and narrative drive. Too much of it is hard to believe.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 6, 2019

As it turns out, a more straightforward adaptation of The Kitchen would have made for a better film.

| Sep 4, 2019

Berloff is unable to find a tone and style that might make emotional sense of the material or to generate any kind of spontaneous interplay between her stars, who even when positioned side by side seem to be giving separate, unrelated performances.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 28, 2019

As a writer, first-time director Andrea Berloff has a track record for solid, if unremarkable, adaptations and gritty true-life tales. Her take on the comic is, unfortunately, just clunky.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 15, 2019

I half-expected every scene to end with a freeze-frame high five or the women yelling "girl power."

| Aug 14, 2019

The movie has no idea how to be a movie. It has no interest in characterization... we know nothing about these women, or really, any of the characters in the whole movie.

| Original Score: F | Aug 13, 2019

Look, this movie is a mess. It absolutely is a mess. The ladies are really restraining themselves -- Tiffany Haddish and Melissa McCarthy particularly -- to not tell jokes. You can tell that they're dying to tell jokes.

| Aug 12, 2019

"The Kitchen" is chock-full of rousing girl-power lines with a trio of actresses that can deliver them with panache, but one wishes the story could back up the characters with more than just firepower.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 12, 2019