Steve McQueen pulls off a thrilling heist with swagger and smarts.

Love them or loath them, it’s hard to deny the endearing durability of the heist movie. With origins stretching back to the very dawn of cinema, the genre hit its stride in the 50s and 60s with the likes of Rififi, Ocean’s 11, and The Italian Job and hasn’t looked back since.

With its timeless, easily signposted template and good time guarantee, the heist movie has gone on to become a true cinematic mainstay, holding strong through the rise and fall of many of its genre cousins to become one of the most successful players in the Hollywood game.

In its essence, the heist film is an incredibly well-defined genre that, for better or worse, adheres largely to a strict, rigidly defined blueprint. As a piece of easily consumable, easily recognisable entertainment, there’s no pretence to what the heist movie is and the function it serves within cinema; yet, while its conventions can be a great source of pleasure, they are often a millstone around the genre’s neck.

At this juncture, we’ve seen almost every conceivable heist scenario going, including many reboots/remakes, so it’s imperative that any rookie looking to get in on the job backs itself up with the talent and the vision to stay one step ahead of the game. So, while you may think you’ve seen every heist movie under the sun, chances are you’ve not come across one quite like Steve McQueen’s Widows.

After the death of four armed robbers in a botched heist, it’s left to their grieving widows to pick up the smouldering pieces. With nothing in common but the debt left behind by their husbands’ criminal activities, the four women have no choice but to take fate into their own hands and finish the job themselves. Against a backdrop of simmering political and social turmoil, Veronica (Viola Davis), Alice (Elizabeth Debicki), Linda (Michelle Rodriguez), and Belle (Cynthia Erivo) must band together to pull off the heist of a lifetime to not only pay off their dangerous creditors, but to secure a future on their own terms.

While it has all the trapping of a classic crime caper, Widows is a far more complex beast than that. Rather than starting with the heist and working back from there, director Steve McQueen makes sure to painstakingly and meticulously lay a sturdy foundation before so much as a safe is cracked.

Widows is essentially an anti-heist heist movie and, quite frankly, I’d expect nothing less from a filmmaker as uncompromising as Steve McQueen. This is a director whose singular vision and brutal style have brought us some of the most devastating dramas of recent years and its these attributes that McQueen brings to a film that, in lesser hands, could’ve come and gone with little impact.

As it is, while McQueen revels in the simple joys a heist movie has to offer, the director clearly takes great pleasure in deconstructing it and piecing something together that simultaneously respects its genre leanings while gleefully burning it all to the ground.

Widows is a character study first and a heist film second. That’s not to say the plot doesn’t lead us through to the big heist eventually, just that the film ensures its characters are taken care of and as well rounded as possible before the plot is left to unravel.

All the usual twists and turns are there - some very impressive ones in fact - yet what McQueen has put together is far removed from your average Hollywood heist. Bouncing back and forth at whim, Widows uses its fragmented structure not necessarily to advance the plot, so much as advance its characters; with beautifully deployed flashbacks between Veronica and Liam Neeson’s Harry, in particular, offering some wonderful shading to characters that could potentially come off as flimsy and impenetrable.

Utilising similar narrative techniques to those employed in Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn’s script does a wonderful job in balancing story with character and, while plot contrivance rears its ugly head now and again, the narrative is smart, tight, and expertly executed. As it skips around both time and place, the action demands your undivided attention with an approach that feels like a breath of fresh air in a genre that can often feel stale and formulaic.

Bookended by two big robberies, these are both delivered like a sucker punch to the gut, coming and going before you have a chance to draw breath. They are the heist bread in the film’s meaty character sandwich and much like (relatively) modern genre classics, Reservoir Dogs and Heat, Widows’ substance comes from everything that surrounds the action.

While this approach may sound counterintuitive, it’s precisely this dedication to the world and the figures surrounding the heist that makes the explosive action so impactful when it arrives. In heist movies gone by, we’ve often been thrown into a long, protracted robbery without nearly enough time spent getting to know those doing the robbing, yet this is where Widows shines.

From the slick gloss of Oceans 11 to the mind-bending visuals of Inception, style is a heist film’s key commodity, yet Widows is something else altogether. Crisscrossing Chicago from deprived projects to immaculately manicured suburbs, Widows has a foot in both the glitz normally associate with the Hollywood heist and the low-down-and-dirty criminal world movies like Heat revelled in, and the result is something quite remarkable.

When Widows hits, it hits hard. It’s an unconventional, frequently brutal ride in which Steve McQueen never once compromises his style. Between the nerve-shredding long takes and the unflinching brutality of the film’s violence, McQueen is given free rein to utilise all his auteur calling cards to their fullest and the effect is as devastating as it is thrilling.

Among the most impressive aspects of Widows is the time and effort it puts into placing you at the centre of a world that’s at once heightened and unflinchingly grounded. From Hunger and Shame, through to 12 Years a Slave, McQueen has always been a filmmaker undeterred by tough subject matter and at Widows’ core is a potent mix of difficult themes that allow the film to resonate on many different levels.

Situating the action right at the heart of a city like Chicago which, like many major metropolitan areas in the US, feels like a simmering pot of extremes and division, McQueen paints a potent and rather stark portrait of race, class, and social deprivation; one that your average heist thriller wouldn’t dare touch. With such Hollywood action theatricality unravelling around them, Widows makes the smart play to anchor every character in something tangible and wholly grounded.

Within the space of a short car ride from the crumbling inner city to the immaculate suburbs, in which a camera fixed to the vehicle’s windscreen highlights a stark and swift transformation in the city’s social landscape, lines are drawn between the haves and the have-nots and then immediately blurred. As gangsters become politicians and politicians become gangsters, Steve McQueen creates a world of seething social upheaval and economic desperation that’s ready to pop at any moment.

Caught in the eye of this storm are the movie’s titular widows. With husbands dispatched in explosive fashion within the film’s opening minutes, the customary gender rules of the heist are immediately turned on their head. As Viola Davis’ Veronica leads a diverse collection of women into the belly of the beast, their purpose and purchase within the story are a breath of fresh air in a genre that typically trades in testosterone.

There’s no tokenism here. The film’s core female cast are there entirely on merit, with each character absolutely necessary to the narrative. There’s a natural feel to the characters’ involvement that puts Widows apart from the likes of Ocean’s 8, as Steve McQueen goes to great lengths to ensure every one of them is involved because they need to be there, not because they have to.

These are immensely strong, yet broken women - women who appear simultaneously vulnerable and bulletproof, and in the void left by their husbands, their ultimate empowerment feels completely natural. There’s incredible strength there but it’s not built on any traditional notions of heroism, instead on a deeply flawed strength, driven by a burning desire to show what they can do on their own terms, as well as an instinctive, deeply human desire for self-preservation.

Of the cast, Viola Davis is in inspired, dominant form as she takes to the mantle of gang leader with gusto, yet expertly threads this with a delicate fragility that belies Veronica’s steely exterior. It’s a wonderfully balanced performance that solidifies her as one of the most talented, yet criminally underrated, actors in Hollywood today; however, while Davis will rightly receive many of the plaudits, the ensemble around her can’t be overlooked.

As the perfect counterweight to Davis, Elizabeth Debicki and Michelle Rodriguez put in a shift and a half as Veronica’s partners in crime, bringing a nice balance to proceedings with well-rounded characters from admirably diverse backgrounds. Together with Cynthia Erivo’s Belle, the characters are far from perfect and often awkward with the criminal environment they’ve been thrust into, yet this is precisely the point.

This band of disparate women feel fully realised and achingly organic. Widows’ plot is of course a heightened form of female empowerment, yet Widows makes sure it’s far more nuanced than just that. All the ‘widow’ actors put in wonderfully duelling performances of remarkable strength and heart-breaking fragility, and the effect is often devastating.

Surrounding them, the film’s male characters are a rag-tag bunch of scumbags, schemers, low-lives, and psychopaths - and there’s not a bad performance among them. Unsurprisingly, Colin Farrell plays slimy, underhanded politician to a tee, while opposite him (both politically and socially), Brian Tyree Henry continues to stoke his burgeoning reputation with a menacing and quietly desperate performance of a seasoned gangster absolutely determined to go straight.

However, as a stand out in a cast of standouts, Daniel Kaluuya once again proves himself to be one of the most promising actors of his generation with a performance of unhinged ferocity that just about avoids caricature to completely steal the show. As the biggest exponent of Widows’ brutal violence, Kaluuya’s Jatemme is one of those deliciously unhinged gangsters, made famous by the likes of Joe Pesci in Goodfellas, that feels utterly terrifying, yet hypnotically charismatic.

In the best way possible, Widows is a tough old watch at times. Uncompromising in both its approach to violence and its subject matter, the film takes its time to go places few of its ilk would dare. Frequently shocking and more than willing to go for the slow burn, the film’s overtly grownup narrative transports you to an era of Heat and The Usual Suspects, where mid-budget, adult-centric thrillers ruled the roost, and the rewards are right there for those willing to take the ride.

Tight, thought-provoking, and thoroughly gripping; Gillian Flynn and Steve McQueen’s script is a rough, uncompromising triumph in a genre that largely trades in glossy, throwaway thrills. Although Widows knows how to play the heist card when necessary, McQueen’s distinctive style and ruthless delivery shines through to offer something entirely unique. Backed up by one of the best ensemble casts of the year, Widows’ empowering, feminist slant and hard-nosed approach to politics, class, bereavement, and social deprivation makes for an unashamedly intelligent and thrilling crime caper that gets the job done and packs one hell of a punch while doing so.