Steve McQueen’s follow-up to his Best Picture-winning 12 Years a Slave is an impressively ambitious heist film that cares more about its characters and their world they inhabit than pulling off a flashy caper. Viola Davis leads a tremendous ensemble that includes Michelle Rodriguez, Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall, Daniel Kaluuya, and breakouts Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, and Brian Tyree Henry. Widows positions itself as more than just a crime thriller as it takes aim at urban politics, class inequality, and patriarchal structures and accomplishes it all with grace and aplomb. This is the kind of smart, gripping, grown-up entertainment that studios hardly make anymore and deserves to be celebrated. Grade: A.
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