Sara And I saw this wonderful movie the other night at a theater. Both of us highly recommend it. Below is a review by Pete Hammond of The Deadline Review which I totally agree with and says it better than I could although I made a few revisions.

THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN  4.0***

might sound odd to say it, but Kevin Costner gives one of  his better performances  in The Art of Racing in the Rain, but you never once see him onscreen. His touching, funny and very wise work as the voice of Enzo, the dog at the heart of this adaptation of Garth Stein’s bestselling book, is truly extraordinary. The book stayed on the New York Times Best Seller list for 3 1/2 years, translated into 38 languages, and has finally, and lovingly, been brought to the screen in a superb way by director Simon Curtis (Woman In Gold) and screenwriter Mark Bomback. They have created a real crowd-pleaser, a wonderful, funny, joyful and enriching motion picture experience not just for dog lovers and lovers of dog movies (count me in), but everyone who still has a beating heart.

Milo Ventimiglia ( TV’s “Life is Us”) plays Denny Swift, an aspiring Formula One driver who one day adopts golden retriever Enzo as a puppy. The two are inseparable, and Enzo takes a keen interest in his new master’s profession, uniquely tying a philosophy of life into what drivers must use to win on the track. As the years go by, eventually life intervenes when Denny meets the woman he will marry, Eve (Amanda Seyfried), and they have a daughter named Zoe. Suddenly Enzo has his hands full, and this becomes a full-bodied family story, one in which tragedy intervenes. That is where complication also rears its head in the form of a major family conflict between Denny and his in-laws, Eve’s parents (Kathy Baker and Martin Donovan). Balancing the personal problems with his professional goals, there’s always Enzo, who acts as kind of a guide for the audience through it all.

 The Art of Racing in the Rain is first and foremost a human and humane story that is simply glorious, centered on a dog whose real desire in life he says is to become human one day. It seems Enzo, who watches a lot of TV, saw a documentary about Mongolia, where local custom convinces him that in his next life he will indeed become a human if he is a good deserving dog. That is always lurking in the background of the current life he leads, a dog often wiser than any human he actually knows.

Costner is key to making this work, with a vocal performance that never misses a beat. There wasn’t a moment in this heavily-narrated film that I didn’t believe he was Enzo. This is the art of doing voice-over in movies. Ventimiglia is perfectly cast in the lead human role, a compassionate man facing some tough times and trying to keep his life on track. Seyfried offers a warm presence as always, but beyond Costner’s superlative work, you have to credit the three dogs who play Enzo so brilliantly  with  those soulful eyes that will make you melt. Camera work by Ross Emery is right on target, always seeming to feature the POV of the dog, not an easy task. In a summer of sequels and remakes this one is a purebred original about a dog who can teach us all invaluable lessons about life.

Rated PG for thematic material ( meaning every day events that sometimes but rarely affect kids)

THE KITCHEN  2.3***

The Kitchen, is a double entendre, referring to women’s traditional place, but also to Hell’s Kitchen, the Manhattan neighborhood which in the late ’70s was home to poor working-class families and Irish American gangs like the one portrayed here.

Kathy (Melissa McCarthy), Ruby (Tiffany Haddish), and Claire (Elizabeth Moss) are the wives of three small-time Irish crime bosses in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen in 1978. When the men are sent to prison, the financially strapped women decide to take over their husbands’ work, gathering protection money from local businesses. The organization-minded Kathy becomes an empowered community leader. Ruby’s ruthlessness and uncompromising negotiating tactics help the women get what they deserve. Claire, whose husband, Rob, abused her, uses the opportunity to learn to defend herself (and how to efficiently dismember and dispose of a body), and she eventually becomes the group’s enforcer, alongside her partner, Gabriel (and Claire’s sometime lover).

The three lead actresses and the rest of the cast work hard but the poor script fails them. But I have to say I had a hard time imagining Melissa McCarthy as a bad-ass mobster .. so that did not work for me at all.  The writing  is messy, uneven, and somewhat bland. It’s also hard to root for the characters. After all, they become full-fledge criminals and murderers.  The movie just feels like a lot of disjointed scenes that don’t always connect into a story, leading to a third act twist that feels both forced and obvious. Also Gangster films rely heavily on tension, and unfortunately that is lacking in this movie.

Essentially, The Kitchen is a movie that I wanted to like more than I did. It’s not a terrible movie but ends up being a disappointing waste of talent.

Rated R for violence, language throughout and some sexual content