Liam Neeson’s thriller Widows, directed by Steve McQueen, is one of the better films in Neeson’s scattered filmography. Widows sits beside Neeson classics like Schindler’s List, forgotten gems like Sam Raimi’s Darkman, and flops like Taken 3. Those familiar with Steve McQueen’s sparse but punishing works can already assume that Widows is no different in its intensity and emotional control. Widows is a calculated thriller in the best sense of the word. It’s calculated in its claustrophobic scope and bitterly realistic stakes. It’s calculated in its performances, controlled to the point of madness, and a perfect exercise in female-led story-telling.

It should feel like a badge of honor for anyone who has gotten through a Steve McQueen movie. You’ve either been trapped in an ’80s Irish prison during a hunger strike in Hunger or trapped in the psychological turmoil of one man’s battle with sex addiction in Shame.

Widows leans closer to these two movies in their underwhelming, unromantic reality compared to his other notable work, 12 Years a Slave. Widows brings together Liam Neeson, Colin Farrell, Michelle Rodriguez, Daniel Kaluuya, and many more for a grimy, punishing thrill ride. Why should you watch Widows? Why is this one of Liam Neeson’s most underrated movies? What does Steve McQueen bring to the movie? Here’s what you need to know.

Liam Neeson Leaves Viola Davis a Widow

There aren’t many films that capture the paradoxes of female violence quite like Widows. After Viola Davis’ character loses her criminal husband, Liam Neeson, in a heist, she and the other criminal’s widows must finish the job. Widows balances the physical with the non-physical, the responsibility of criminality with the trauma of female grief and the role of family.

It might sound like a simple perspective swap, but Widows knows the power of appearances, specifically the appearances the widows have to maintain. Sexual politics and gangster life close in on all sides, and amid this complication, the simple act of the heist tethers their lives to the memories of their husbands.

This weight of responsibility is constant in Widows. Liam Neeson acts as a silent burden hanging around his wife’s neck, the life of her husband not neatly translating onto her without giving her a choice but to take it. A weaponization of female rage and all its hidden nuances, Widows shoulders the responsibility of revenge while never forgetting to show what it costs. Neeson’s presence creates the dramatic weight that anchors Viola Davis and her new crew, leaving her much more than just a widow grieving.

The Style of Steve McQueen in Widows

A director like McQueen is perfect to embody this weight, and he does so to remove any potential romance from the situation. Widows doesn’t care if you want to see high-speed thrills or if you want your female leads to stop talking about their husbands. The film succeeds on the strength of subverting its ‘novel’ premise. McQueen’s suffocating style only implodes on his characters in their most vulnerable states, much like Michael Fassbender’s character in Shame.

The appearance of normality in modern America is a tried and tested theme that’s given a new spin in Widows. McQueen works best in close-quarters, claustrophobic settings, and Widows traps its female leads in the parts they are supposed to be playing. Gritty suburbia and the familiar faces of a crooked town are all there, and Widows’ most thrilling moments play out when the women have to weave through them as obstacles.

Thrillers in this style rarely give enough space for the obstacles to feel like fully formed characters, and Widows bucks this trend with a slew of fantastic supporting players. Daniel Kaluuya, in particular, fits into McQueen’s understated style perfectly. Movies like Shame and Hunger work so well because the audience is never quite sure how far McQueen is willing to push the envelope with his dark stories, normally finding a way to do so. It creates kinetic energy trapped in these tight spaces, and McQueen’s work has shown he is rarely satisfied with ticking conventional genre boxes.

Why You Should Watch Widows

Liam Neeson is similarly a fitting cast for Widows and what it wants to show about a life of crime. Simple subversion of character type isn’t good enough for McQueen. Neeson plays such a larger role than that. On one level, Neeson’s casting is an obvious and nodding against-type performance; the man who has saved his daughter from European smugglers is comparatively weaker here. Widows doesn’t want to tell you that crime is bad and women doing crime is different. The film wants to deconstruct the archetypal male savior, the man who only has to shoulder the responsibility of fighting bad guys.

Widows peels back that layer to show the impact of crime on the lengths women have to go to in a man’s world. It might seem like an underwhelming message that crime hurts more than just the criminals, but it’s in that very underwhelming and realistic story that Widows tells us it’s not as easy as a woman becoming an action hero. The sacrifices that society puts on them and the stereotypes powerful men rely on need to be dealt with first. And all that before Viola Davis gets a chance to steal the money and outrun the people chasing her. God forbid women have hobbies. Widows is streaming on fuboTV.