Widows (2018) is one of the most emotionally devastating heist movies I've ever watched

Talk about a Rollercoaster of emotions: I don't think I've watched a heist movie before that has left me with such sorrow, melancholy and even a few bittersweet tears. Oceans Eleven had me busting out laughing, Heat brought me to the edge of the seat with suspense, and now Widows has left me a disheveled shell of my former self. And that is all Steve McQueen's focused direction, Gillian Flynns superb screenplay, and what I'm gonna say is Viola Davis' greatest performance ever put to put to screen. The results are both exceptionally thrilling and gut wrenching.

The plot follows four women whose husband's were killed in a botched robbery that left their bodies and 2 million dollars in a pile of scorched rubble. The victim of this botched robbery is gangster and aspiring politician Jamal Manning, played beautifully by Brian Tyree Manning, who threatens to murder Veronica (Davis) and the other widows if they do not pay back the money he lost to their husbands. The widows must now team together to pull off an extraordinarily dangerous heist to save themselves and secure their futures

What makes this movie so powerful is how much we feel and connect with the desperation and absolute anguish of these women. Their husbands careers never touched theirs, they are complete amateurs when it comes to crime. Any other director probably would have layered this kind of material with shades of dark humor in showing their naivety and mishaps to give the audiencea bit of fresh air. But director Steve McQueen stands his ground and instead makes us feel their pain; this is from the man that brought us 12 Years A Slave afterall.

Viola Davis performance in this picture cannot be overstated; she moved me to tears with this picture. Her character is level headed and strong when leading the widows and even in the face of death itself, but good God there is so much anguish in her eyes. I just wanna jump through the screen and give her a hug. In fact, all the performances in this movie are absolutely stellar: Colin Ferrell, Liam Neeson, Daniel Kaluuya, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Dibecki, Robert Duvall and so on are bringing everything they have. That is a miracle in of itself that a cast as big as this one can deliver such incredible and deeply layered performances even with just a few minutes of screentime.

It might just be me being particularly moved by this picture, but Widows is an unstoppable force of moviemaking and I would dare call it of the greatest crime dramas in the last decade at least

4/4 stars no notes