Widows (2018)

Heist movies are often compelling because of their mechanics -- the thrill (and spectacle) of watching crooks dismantle a system, outsmart the law and escape with their lives, and bounty, intact. Steve McQueen’s “Widows” offers a lot of superficial window dressing to make his heist unique -- the fact that the would-be perpetrators are the wives of “real” thieves -- but what’s compelling, even riveting, about his film is not how they are pulling it off, but why.

Bolstered by an impressive ensemble including Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell, Daniel Kaluuya, and Liam Neeson, “Widows” brings to irresistible life the determination, and desperation, of four women struggling to control their own fate within a system built upon, and preoccupied by, its own greed, corruption, and indifference.