Widows: Five-star thriller is brilliant and brilliantly entertaining

You don’t often get a movie that is both thrilling and wildly entertaining and a serious Oscar contender. This one is.

Some movies are brilliant and some movies are brilliantly entertaining.

The brilliantly entertaining movies tend to give you a really enjoyable experience followed by a but; but the dialogue was cheesy, but some of the performances weren’t great, but the plot fell apart.

It’s rare to come across a film that is both brilliant and brilliantly entertaining.

Widows is that film — a compelling mix of action blockbuster and serious Oscar contender.

Directed by Steve McQueen and written by McQueen and Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn, Widows is based on a popular 1980s British TV series by Lynda La Plante. That’s some serious pedigree there.

Viola Davis leads a cast that includes Australian actors Elizabeth Debicki and Jacki Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell, Liam Neeson, Daniel Kaluuya, Brian Tyree Henry and Robert Duvall.

Viola Davis is being mooted for another Oscar nomination for her Widows role (Merrick Morton/20th Century Fox via AP

Set in Chicago, Veronica Rawlins (Davis) is madly, passionately in love with her criminal husband Harry (Neeson). When Harry and his gang of thieves are killed during a botched heist, Veronica and the other men’s widows find themselves left with nothing.

Even worse, the men who Harry stole from, Jamal Manning (Henry) and his brother Jatemme (Kaluuya), want their missing $2 million from Veronica, giving her a month to raise the impossible amount.

So it’s up to Veronica and fellow widows Linda (Rodriguez) and Alice (Debicki) to pick up where their husbands left off. Despite knowing next-to-nothing about what’s involved in stealing millions of dollars from a target they can’t quite identify, they’re perfect because no one expects them to pull it off, or even try it on.

Watching Widows straight-up refute the notion that women are less than men, of seeing these women shatter those low expectations is a triumph.

Never underestimate these gals Picture: Suzanne Tenner/20th Century Fox via AP

McQueen has proven himself a prodigious filmmaker with Hunger, Shame and the Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave. He has crafted an extraordinary film that is wildly entertaining with thrilling car chases, explosions and tense heist sequences.

But it also has gravitas — you don’t feel like you’ve watched just a popcorn movie, where, like the salty snacks, it’s fun to consume at the time but ultimately unsatisfying and regretful as the day goes on.

McQueen was a successful visual artist before he turned to filmmaking and that background and flair always come across in his movies.

Daniel Kaluuya from ‘Get Out’ and ‘Black Panther’ and Brian Tyree Henry from ‘Atlanta’ both stretch their dramatic legs in ‘Widows’ (20th Century Fox via AP)

There’s one particular scene in Widows that is breathtaking — Jack Mulligan (Farrell), a local politician in a bid for re-election who thinks nothing of dropping $50,000 on some art, gets in his fancy, chauffeured car outside a poor African-American neighbourhood.

The camera is mounted on the car, following the vehicle as it turns several blocks, the landscape of the background changing from rundown blocks of units and chain mail fencing to leafy suburbia.

All the while, there’s dialogue between Jack and his campaign manager (Molly Kunz) looped over the top, which, coupled with the visuals, capture the racial and class divide and the institutions enabling such a corrupt system, of that district, of Chicago and of America.

It’s a stunning sequence that says so much in two minutes — it’s not heavy-handed but there is no mistaking its message.

Colin Farrell plays a corrupt local politician (20th Century Fox via AP)

As always, Davis’ performance is fierce, confident and vulnerable — when Davis is hurting or raging, you feel it, her emotions jumps off the screen and reverberates.

The whole cast is on fine form — scene-stealing Debicki, Farrell, who continues to ride his career renaissance, Erivo, whose screen presence is undeniable and Kaluuya’s unsettling standover gangster.

Widows is an absolute standout, a remarkable film from a master storyteller.

Rating: ★★★★★

Widows is in cinemas from today.

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