Widows is the story of four women who set out to steal $5 million from a politician. Why? Because before the ladies’ husbands were all killed in a botched getaway attempt, they stole $2 million from a crime boss, whom the women now believe they need to repay. The crime boss, Jamal Manning, needs the money to finance his campaign for alderman. He is running against Jack Mulligan, the incumbent who is favored to win and whose family has been in politics a long time.
The widows are Veronica, Harry’s widow; Amanda, Jimmy’s widow; Linda, Carlos’ widow; and Alice, Florek’s widow. It starts when Veronica looks in a safe deposit box for Harry’s notebook that tells how to steal the money, which is in Mulligan’s home. She recruits Alice and Linda to complete the heist, and Alice gets the guns and getaway car while Linda helps decipher Harry’s blueprints. The ladies decide not to enlist Amanda’s help because she has a four-month-old baby.
The ladies discover which room in Mulligan’s mansion has the money and choose Belle, Linda’s babysitter, to be the getaway driver. Veronica gets into Jack Mulligan’s mansion by claiming she needs protection from crime boss Jamal Manning. The three women finally make their way through Mulligan’s home and retrieve the money, but Tom Mulligan, Jack’s father, ends up dead in the end. Then, Jamal’s brother Jatemme steals the money from the ladies and flees in their van, only to crash and be killed.
In the end, the widows get the money they were after and end up putting it to good use. Linda reacquires a store she lost earlier, Alice starts her own business, Belle moves away, and Veronica donates a lot of money to rebuild a school library. Jack Mulligan wins reelection, in part because everyone was sympathetic that his father died.
Here are some of the cast and characters from the movie Widows:
Viola Davis (Veronica Rawlings)
Veronica Rawlings is Harry’s widow and a teachers’ union delegate in Chicago. After her husband is killed stealing money from Jamal Manning, a crime boss, she and three other widows try to steal some money to pay part of it back, but the money ends up being in the home of the man Manning is running against for alderman, Jack Mulligan. Veronica finds the instructions for getting the money in a safe deposit box that belonged to her husband.
Veronica is shrewd and figures out how to get into Mulligan’s home. Along the way, she discovers her husband’s flask in the home of Amanda, one of the widows, and gets suspicious. Still, she continues on her quest to get the $5 million, which she ends up doing by the end of the movie.
Michelle Rodriguez (Linda)
Linda is Carlos’ widow and has a clothing store of her own. Unfortunately, in her husband’s gambling dealings, he ends up losing the store to repay his gambling debt. When the ladies finally get into Jack Mulligan’s home and his father Tom tries to stop them, it is Linda who shoots and kills Tom. Linda also recruits her babysitter Belle to drive the ladies’ getaway car. Linda proves to be a very important and productive addition to the ladies’ little ensemble.
Elizabeth Debicki (Alice)
Alice is Florek’s widow, and she becomes a “sugar baby” to support herself after her husband dies. Alice is no stranger to abuse because both her mother and her husband abused her. She also ends up having an affair with a real estate developer named David after her husband dies. When the ladies run into Tom Mulligan in his son’s mansion, Tom wounds Alice with a gun but she recovers from the gunshot. It is also Alice who gets guns and a getaway car for the ladies’ venture.
Cynthia Erivo (Belle)
Belle is Linda’s babysitter and a beautician as well. She is recruited by the widows to be the driver of the getaway car. Belle does her part in the heist by being a lookout at one point and being a distraction at another time. She is very involved indeed in the venture but in the end, when it’s all over and the ladies have their money, she decides to move away and start all over again.
Colin Farrell (Jack Mulligan)
Jack Mulligan comes from a family of politicians, starting with his father Tom. He is an incumbent alderman running against a crime boss, and while he secretly hates politics, he loves the money and perks it provides him. His campaign office is in his home and when Veronica visits him asking for protection against his running mate Jamal Manning, he doesn’t realize it’s just a guise to case out his home so the ladies can find out where the money is.
In the end, Jack easily wins reelection but his father Tom is shot and killed. The fact that his father is dead actually got him a lot of sympathy votes, which is part of the reason he won.
Brian Tyree Henry (Jamal Manning)
Jamal Manning is a crime boss who decides to run against Jack Mulligan for the position of alderman. He believes that Veronica is indebted to him because her late husband stole money from him. He actually threatens Veronica to get the money, and when Veronica discovers the blueprint to where the money is in Mulligan’s home, it is suggested that she try and sell it to Jamal, but she decides against this. Jamal intends to use the money he feels Veronica owes him to finance his campaign for alderman. In the end, Jamal loses his campaign.
Daniel Kaluuya (Jatemme Manning)
Jatemme Manning is Jamal’s brother and mob enforcer. When he discovers the widows have the money, he holds the babysitter Belle at gunpoint, grabs the money and flees in the ladies’ van. The ladies then get in their car and follow him. When they get close enough, they ram him from behind, which causes him to crash and be killed in the process. Jatemme also works very hard to retrieve Harry’s blueprint to Mulligan’s home earlier but is unsuccessful.
Carrie Coon (Amanda)
Amanda is Jimmy’s widow and the mother of a four-month-old baby. During the course of the movie, it is discovered that she was once involved with Veronica’s husband Harry, who is also the father of her child. She is a new mother, so she is not involved with any of the goings-on that the other widows are involved in.
Robert Duvall (Tom Mulligan)
Tom Mulligan is an experienced politician and Jack Mulligan’s father. He is also a power broker who is at odds with his son. He warns Jack that should Jack lose the election to Jamal, he will never lose the shame associated with the event. In the end, it is Tom who catches the ladies trying to steal the money in Jack’s home, and he ends up dead because Linda shoots him.
Liam Neeson (Harry Rawlings)
Harry was Veronica’s loving husband but was also a renowned bank robber. He had a gang of men working with him, and several of them were eventually killed, which left four women widows.
Jon Bernthal (Florek)
Florek was Alice’s abusive husband and a member of Harry’s gang.
Manuel Garcia-Rulfo (Carlos)
Carlos was a member of Harry’s gang and also Linda’s gambler husband. It was because of him that Linda lost her store.