SHIFTER’s Chris Harrison praises the uniqueness of Bassam Tariq’s latest film in his Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother review.
“[Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother] is one of the most unique action movies I’ve seen in some time.” – Chris Harrison
Much of the discourse surrounding Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother has been centered around the missed opportunity of Mahershala Ali‘s cancelled Blade reboot, but it almost feels silly to yearn for a superhero movie that never was when a film like this was possible the whole time.
Here, Ali does, in fact, play a taciturn, blade-wielding hitman, but there is something much richer on display here. Ali’s Latif is newly widowed, and his wife Kadijah’s sudden passing has left the devout Muslim questioning his faith after his prayers have gone unanswered. He’s a wounded man, and a man of relatively few words (though not an entirely self-serious or humorless one, despite what his kids may think), never quite letting the people around him know what he’s feeling.
He’s concealing his true profession from anyone who doesn’t need to know, including his young children, and doing what he can to keep a stiff upper lip while he tries to fill the void left behind by his late wife. He claims to just be selling oils and perfumes, not doing the dirty work of the head of a private security company. Adding to his pain, his youngest child can’t handle baby formula and what little milk his wife left behind is soon to run out. His attempts to replenish the supply take him all over the city.
When he finds himself in the middle of a conflict between Hatty (Abubakr Ali), his employer’s pornographer of a nephew — always up to some “haram-ass activity” — and Hwan Yoon (John Cho) the leader of a heavily armed Texas-based Christian fundamentalist cult with Hatty in his crosshairs, things begin to unravel and he’s no longer able shield his children from the dangerous lifestyle he has chosen.
The film is beautifully shot, and not just during the well-choreographed action scenes. Latif’s face is often bathed in a warm light. Ali does a masterful job of conveying his weariness, his pains, and his doubts, even when he doesn’t speak. Some of the most stunning and emotionally affective shots are centered around prayer, as each of the main characters, from Latif to his older kids, Fatiha (an excellent Adia) and Qadir (Jahleel Kamara, who gets the movie’s biggest laughs), and even Hatty are grappling with their faith after having found so many reasons to doubt. Even characters like Fugazi, formerly one of Hatty’s sex workers and now finding herself in Hwan’s orbit, worshipping at a strip club-turned church, have their journeys with faith presented earnestly.
There’s almost a sort of magical realism to the movie, and at no point does it stand out more than at the very end, where writer/director Bassam Tariq makes a bold choice that could have taken viewers out of the experience were the film in less capable hands. But here, the ending works, a testament to the worldbuilding and characterization present in the film to that point. It’s one of the most unique action movies I’ve seen in some time, part Fatherhood and part The Raid, and one of the must-see movies of this year’s TIFF.
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