After years of delays for his long awaited debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the vampire hunter Blade, Mahershala Aliis finally making his way to the big screen as a sword wielding hunter, just not the one audiences expected. His latest film has been buzzed about both as an opportunity to see his action skills and work with director Bassam Tariq, who also was previously attached to the MCU film.
Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother stars Ali as Latif, a devoutly religious hit man struggles to balance work, faith and fatherhood. When his wife dies, he embarks on a desperate journey across Houston to protect his children as he confronts the forces that are closing in around him.
While publicly marketed as an action assassin film, Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is actually more family drama than fight heavy thriller. Ali’s Latif is a devout Muslim whose family crisis leaves him facing another crisis, that of the strength of his faith. The grief that Latif feels following the loss of his wife finds him at odds with trying to take care of his children in the wake of her absence and the best avenue for that being his skills as a killer. As Latif seeks to care for kids with the help of the Muslim community he is a part of, it plays as an almost Safdie brothers-style frenetic journey following the protagonist around the city while he seeks to solve one problem in his life but only digs himself into more violent and anxiety inducing problems as he encounters an ever-growing cast of characters and violent situations.
The resulting fight scenes from Latif’s descent into a contract killing with far reaching effect are well choreographed, but few and far between. The majority of the physical conflict occurs in the first scene and the last with Latif’s inner turmoil and family strife being the meat of the sandwich. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, but the story of the conflicted religious man and his children being caught in the middle of his professional and personal crisis never reaches a compelling point where the story makes up the lull in action. The religious thread in the story doesn’t delve deeply enough to create any effective empathy for Latif and while his struggle with his children does hold some weight, it’s not enough to carry the film.
Image: Amazon MGM Studios
