Like Ocean’s 8 except with a stronger rationale for why everyone was together.

Unlike the other “women do a heist” movie that came out in 2018 this movie did an extensive job developing the characters and building the chemistry. Almost exhaustively so. What I assumed would be a formulaic heist movie was a formulaic heist movie with so many layers I didn’t ask for.

Yes, the acting was great. And it’s great that they were willing to give screen time to things like an older mixed race couple and a bunch of strong women. I just wasn’t expecting it.

If anything, the only complaint I really have is that I wish we had less of Liam Neeson and more of literally any other plot line. Viola Davis played a wonderfully complex character and it’s not like there wasn’t plenty going on with the political intrigue. It almost feels like they didn’t trust that the movie could land without enough Liam Neeson screen time.

Besides that, all the other characters had a nice variety of stories to tell. We got multiple versions of what a strong female character can look like and they tried doing each of the justice. They built a world around the heist that I wouldn’t have minded seeing more of.

The other thing I didn’t like was they did a fuzzy, double image while Viola Davis mourned that was confusing and difficult to look at, literally, it was hard to look at. I heard at least one person ask, out loud in the theater, if there was something wrong with the screen. This was made worse by the fact that she had similar mourning scenes but the technique was only used once. They did a convo in the car as they drove from the lower end of the neighborhood to their gated house that, while a bit obvious, did work. So it’s not like they can’t make good choices, just some paid off and some gave me a migraine.

Verdict: 3/5 Could have delivered more but has a lot going for it in an elevated heist movie format