Tag: the kitchen

The Kitchen (2024) Film Review.

In a dystopian future London where all social housing has been eliminated, Izi and Benji fight to navigate the world as residents of The Kitchen, a community that refuses to abandon their home.

The Kitchen is directed by Kibwe Tavares and Daniel Kaluuya, the movie being the directorial debut of both. 

It’s a shame The Kitchen is getting buried because while it is flawed and does fall into very familiar territory towards the end, I do think it’s incredibly solid showcase of acting and directing. 

The cast really does a great job here, Kane Robinson and Jedaiah Bannerman in particular really standout and their acting really matches the type of atmosphere the movie is going for. The world building is also quite neat with some attention to detail thrown in there for good measure, the direction from Tavares and Kaluuya is also quite strong the two create such an interesting atmosphere that has a lot of heartfelt moments that capture the viewer’s attention. 

As I said earlier the movie does get held back from falling into very familiar territory mostly the “found family” trope which works for the most part in the context of the story, but is a bit underwhelming at the same time. There’s a few ideas that aren’t quite fleshed out but luckily the rest of the movie holds the viewer’s interest especially when it comes to the camerawork that shows a lot of genuinely beautiful shots. 

Overall The Kitchen is a decent movie, it’s held back by some missteps but the direction from Kaluuya and Tavares is quite strong both of which show a lot of promise in their directing careers. 

The Kitchen is available on Netflix. 

6/10 C+

The Kitchen (2019)

The wives of New York gangsters in Hell’s Kitchen in the 1970s continue to operate their husbands’ rackets after they’re locked up in prison. I honestly have no clue what they were trying to go for here, whatever it was this movie failed miserably. I thought the negative reception was going to be one of those “overreacting” kind of bad but nope this definitely deserved the reception it got. I really don’t know what to say, if you have seen at least one of these types of movies before congratulations you already saw “The Kitchen” Melissa McCarthy definitely tried her best with a script that was very below average, another thing about this movie is….how much it felt like a typical VOD thriller movie. I believe it was twice throughout the movie where I had to remind myself that this was actually released in theaters not VOD, the writing is about as bland as you can get it really doesn’t try to engage audiences, it just juggles several ideas that it drops all at once. The direction is all over the place wanting to be a drama, comedy and thriller all at once but completely fails to be either. Give this one a skip.
2/10 F