Widows - Tödliche Witwen

This film version is based on the ITV series from 1983 that was written by Lynda La Plante.

In Chicago, Harry Rawlings (Liam Neeson) heist has gone wrong. His gang is killed and he is burned to a cinder when stealing two million dollars from a ruthless gangster Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry) who is also running for political office. He is running against smarmy upstart Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell) who is corrupt just like his father Tom Mulligan (Robert Duvall) who is stepping down from politics due to ill health.

Jamal and his brother Jatemme Manning (Daniel Kaluuya) put pressure on Harry's widow Veronica (Viola Davis) to liquidate all her assets and pay them back.

Harry has left behind a notebook with plans for his next job. Veronica teams up with the other widows from her late husband's gang to pull off the heist and pay off the Mannings. The Mannings are after the notebook as well.

Steve McQueen has gone for a muscular reworking set in Chicago but it also becomes flabby with too many right on messages ranging from political corruption, female exploitation to a racist cop needlessly killing a young black man. The political angle was overkill and got in the way of the main story, at times making the widows secondary characters in their own movie.

Having seen the original series of Widows when it was broadcast. It was a trailblazer, a heist film featuring women and written by a woman with a big plot twist. The remake maintains the twist but is nowhere as good as the original show.