Hows this for an offer you cant refuse? With his new movie, the director behind 2014s Best Picture winner, 12 Years a Slave, is channeling one of the most famous films ever made.

Its not so much that Steve McQueens Widows borrows beats from The Godfather, though both are crime sagas that feature threatening mobsters, brutal shootouts and calamitous betrayals. No, its more about the movies shared communal scope, as McQueen put it when we talked last week. He wants Widows to have the same universal appeal as Francis Ford Coppolas masterpiece.

Starring a blue book of Hollywoods finest, Widows twists and turns with fist-pumping electricity, indicting capitalism, American politics and racist police without needing a single sermon to drive home its messages unless, that is, you count a TED Talk-worthy admonishment from Viola Davis : We have a lot to do; crying isnt on the list.

Co-written with Gone Girl and Sharp Objects savant Gillian Flynn, Widows follows four women uniting to pull off the heist that killed their husbands and saddled them with debts. At the center is Davis Veronica, a strong-willed Chicagoan married to the ill-fated thieves ringleader (Liam Neeson). Davis is joined by Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki and Cynthia Erivo, who are pitted against corrupt lawmakers (Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall), menacing crime chiefs (Daniel Kaluuya, Brian Tyree Henry) and other assorted bystanders (Carrie Coon, Jacki Weaver, Jon Bernthal, a fluffy white dog).

The project underscores how much McQueens style and sensibilities have shape-shifted across each of his four movies. 12 Years a Slave elevated the 49-year-old British filmmakers profile, but he first drew art-house audiences with 2008s Hunger (a drama about the 1981 Irish hunger strike) and 2011s Shame (a stark portrait of a sex addict featuring a highly naked Michael Fassbender). Widows is a ballpark away from any of those, less a meditation and more a decree.

McQueen, chipper and eloquent, called me last week to discuss Widows, which premiered to raves at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and opens in theaters Nov. 16. We talked about Davis and Neesons intense make-out scene, Trumpian parallels and why McQueen wanted this to be his version of The Godfather.

Of your movies, Widows has the most obvious commercial appeal. Does it feel like a different experience for you?

Yes, it does. The biggest ingredient missing when you finish a movie, of course, is the audience. The response weve gotten, basically since Toronto, has been amazing. I think the audiences are responding to it as a group. Its like being on a roller coaster ride, where people watching the movie are gasping and cheering and applauding and laughing. Its like an added soundtrack to the movie that obviously isnt there when youre making it. I cant think of the word. Whats the word Im looking for? Oh God, I cant even think of the word! Its been OK, how do I say this? Im trying to get the right sentence. Its almost like audiences have been responding in unison. Thats the word. Thank God for that. Found it in the end.