YOUR MOTHER YOUR MOTHER YOUR MOTHER: 4 STARS. “Pulpy and pious.”
SYNOPSIS: In “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother,” a new action thriller starring Mahershala Ali now playing in theatres, a devoutly religious hitman attempts to care for his family after his wife suddenly passes away.
CAST: Mahershala Ali, John Cho, Giancarlo Esposito, Abubakr Ali, Tramell Tillman, Tiffany Boone, Laith Nakli. Directed by Bassam Tariq.
REVIEW: Oscar winner Mahershala Ali plays Latif, a devout Muslim contract killer torn between his faith, family and the morality of his deadly work when his wife suddenly passes away. “I see her everywhere,” he says. “You take her from me. And you expect me to bow down to you. I thought I was your sword. Now I have to fill her shoes. I’m breaking.”
The soft-spoken ex-military hitman, now solely responsible for their three children, including the youngest, an infant child allergic to baby formula, finds himself distracted from his desperate citywide mission to find a supply of breast milk by a gangster (Laith Nakli) demanding a favor, the disapproving imam (Giancarlo Esposito) who leads his local mosque in Houston and a Charismatic Christian leader (John Cho) who spreads his gospel via violence.
“Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” is arthouse action that works because the stakes are high. This isn’t just a story of good and evil; it’s the story of a father trying to feed his innocent baby as his life spins out of control.
At the center of it all is Ali. As Latif, he’s a coiled spring, ready to go at any minute. Capable of great violence, he’s also, by times, warm, grief stricken and even funny. It’s a character of great depth and complexity that affords Ali the opportunity to do top tier work that mixes the sacred with the profane.
It also feels like a faraway echo of a movie that might have been. For a time, Ali and director Bassam Tariq worked on a reboot of “Blade,” the sword wielding Marvel Comics half-vampire, half-human vampire hunter. The project was abandoned after years of development, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Latif, like the superhero, has a dual identity, uses a blade to dispatch his victims and radiates a brooding, quiet intensity. If “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” wasn’t such a great movie, it could easily play like a trailer for a film we may never get to see.
Pulpy and pious, and with, it must be said, some unexpected humour, “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” uses its unusual breast milk inciting incident to weave a parable laced with tension, bloodshed, but, most of all, devotion.
