It sounds like it should be a good film. It has a helluva strong cast, a great concept and a nice twist on the traditional wiseguy story. But it’s not.

The dialog starts ok ... the setup is ok... but the plot quickly descends into dross. Just a dopey story altogether, and as the story descends, the quality of the dialog follows.

What starts as a fresh take on the genre turns to pale imitation with a bunch of cliches and tropes. The position the women are initially left in rings true, but the way they take to the task of protection racketeering is rushed and unlikely.

Elisabeth Moss is wasted in a cliched, two dimensional role... one of few dud roles she’s been stuck with.

Melissa McCarthy delivers a great performance against the restrictions forced upon her and shows more of her dramatic chops than many of her previous roles have given her the chance to. Her performance lifts the star rating by a star or two. But if you’re determined to see this film and even more so if you want to like it, just watch the trailer. If on the other hand you watch it, prepare to wonder about the film this could have been.

I went into this thinking it would be like Widows but it was similar in approach to what motivated the women to work together but different in everything else.

[spoiler] Here I was led to believe the women were closer than they were. Maybe that’s how the Irish mob worked in the 70s. Idk. But as the story progress we find they don’t really know each other and are all different types of people with different types of commitment to the cause. Early on you could clearly see Kathy had a better investment into the community and it’s people while Ruby wanted power and Claire was looking for freedom. I think all 3 could have been great friends in running this business but they let naivety and outside influence and goals get in the way.

This movie was a lot crammed into one. I think we could have taken our time in developing the characters and their motivations. The men getting out could have came in a second movie along with half the deaths. It’s hard to believe 10 deaths in the same neighborhood in less than 2 years was just brushed under the rug especially with half of them connected to the three women. Even with a fed and cop on their side.[/spoiler]

Overall I don’t have to agree with the direction of the story to dislike it. I liked the surprises that were in the story. Some were abrupt but that points back to my previous point. For what this is it was good and I would watch a sequel.