Mob wives strike back in the new trail­er for The Kitchen

When the plot syn­op­sis for Andrea Berloff’s new crime pic­ture The Kitchen first dropped in 2017, it sound­ed pret­ty good: Tiffany Had­dish, Melis­sa McCarthy, and Elis­a­beth Moss would play mob wives tak­ing over the dirty busi­ness after their hus­bands get thrown in the slam­mer, grad­u­al­ly incur­ring the wrath of the competition.

Wid­ows, but a com­e­dy? Two tick­ets, please! Except that the trail­er, unveiled just this morn­ing, sug­gests things won’t be that simple.

The Kitchen is most assured­ly not a com­e­dy, play­ing straight the same premise pre­vi­ous­ly explored by Steve McQueen last fall, as our hero­ines over­come the odds and soci­etal gen­der stereo­types to run with the big boys. Fac­ing chau­vin­ism, a squeeze on their per­son­al finances, and gun bar­rels from both sides of the law, they’ve got no choice but to tough­en up and face the world.

With some assis­tance from the men they allow into their orbit – Domh­nall Glee­son appears to be some sleazy small-time crook, giv­ing Moss’ char­ac­ter a help­ing hand – they for­mu­late a plot to rip off the alpha dogs and get theirs. Of course, men like this don’t usu­al­ly appre­ci­ate hav­ing their mon­ey stolen, and they won’t hes­i­tate to hurt a woman just because of her gender.

The trail­er empha­sizes the film’s roots in the world of comics, hav­ing been born as a series for indie pub­lish­er Ver­ti­go. Strange to see Moss snap­pin’ necks and cashin’ checks – as strange as it is to see Had­dish keep­ing a straight face for an entire fea­ture run time – but if it worked for McQueen, there’s no rea­son it won’t work here.

The Kitchen comes to cin­e­mas in the US on 9 August, then the UK on 20 September.