Steve McQueen wants to make you look. His achingly long takes in "Twelve Years a Slave" forced viewers to confront the harsh realities of slavery; his gaze teased and tortured us in equal measure in the sex-addiction drama "Shame." With "Widows," a masterfully made female-driven heist film, McQueen's camera both directs and distracts the eye, connecting characters with long takes while lulling viewers into a trance before an explosion of violence. In this genre exercise, McQueen seems to be saying look again, look harder, because underneath the roiling tension of big money heists and the crunching of political gears is an examination about the ugly machinations of power, money and patriarchy.
