Review: ‘Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother’ only exists because the MCU ‘Blade’ failed, but Marvel’s loss is cinema’s gain

Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother rises from the ashes of Marvel Studios’ botched Blade movie. Star Mahershala Ali was unveiled as the MCU’s take on the daywalker with great fanfare in 2019, with Bassam Tariq hired to direct in 2021.

For a variety of reasons, Blade never happened (Kevin Feige later admitted this left him feeling like a “failure”), but Tariq and Ali hit it off creatively and decided that since Ali had just enjoyed the benefits of a Marvel-funded year of sword combat training, why not put those skills to good use in an indie action movie?

The MCU’s loss is everyone else’s gain, as Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is a top-tier art-thriller that’s simultaneously a meditation on faith and religious coexistence, a working-class family drama, and a grindhouse action movie. That’s a lot of plates to keep spinning, but Tariq (writing and directing) delivers with aplomb.

Action films like this don’t come around too often

Ali plays Latif, an ex-military hitman and devout Muslim. In the opening scene, we see him violently and efficiently dispatch his mark, only for the clean-up to be interrupted by a frantic call from his daughter Fatiha (Adia). Khadijah, his wife and their mother, has suddenly and unexpectedly died.

Latif must then grapple with his grief, his faith, a dwindling supply of breast milk to feed his infant daughter Aziza, and a rapidly brewing beef between a Muslim-themed porn studio and a bizarre evangelical Christian sect led by Hwan Yoon (John Cho) that he absolutely wants no part of. The rest of the movie is Latif struggling to keep it together until incredible violence becomes the only option.

Ali’s Latif is the latest in a long line of vaguely samurai-themed Western hitman protagonists. The ur-example is Alain Delon in 1967’s Le Samouraï, but from him stems Jean Reno in Leon: The Professional, Forest Whitaker in Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai, and (more or less) Keanu Reeves’ John Wick (oh go on, throw Pedro Pascal’s The Mandalorian in there too).

Latif and his samurai hitman predecessors all share the same basic plot arc. They lead a tightly disciplined and regimented life to a strict personal code and, until the film begins, it’s worked out for them. Then things start getting complicated: be it a slain dog, a romantic interest who gets a little too close, or, in Latif’s case, a hungry baby and a family to provide for. All too soon, that personal code is stretched to breaking point. Drama!

But while Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother follows a well-worn plot groove, the way it goes down is fascinating. First and foremost, this is a Muslim action movie that both takes its faith seriously and presents it realistically, which is vanishingly rare in a Hollywood production (so rare I actually can’t think of another major studio release that covers similar ground. Maybe 1992’s Malcolm X?).

Religion is the core of this story, contrasting various Muslim characters’ moralities as they relate to Islam, a conflict between them and an ostentatious rhinestone-studded violent American Christianity, and some pleasant but hapless Mormons lurking in the background. But there’s no judgment on these opposing religions, with the movie and its characters finding common ground in a shared Abrahamic faith, and (more fundamentally) that they each believe in a higher power.

I’m not going to get into spoilers, but Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother eventually resolves its religious tensions in a stupendously incredible scene that’s one of those “Oh wow, are they going to do this? Oh wow! They’re actually doing it!” cinematic moments. I’m not even going to hint at what happens, save to say it feels like a plot development that’ll have people arguing for years to come.

It all adds up to a deeply impressive movie firing on all cylinders throughout. Ali is excellent, clearly recognizing that roles like this don’t come along often. The supporting cast is also impeccable, with top performances from Cho, Giancarlo Esposito (a real-life Muslim convert) as Latif’s Imam, and Tramell Tillman as Latif’s brother. Special mention has to go to Adia and Jahleel Kamara as Latif’s kids, who anchor the film’s emotional stakes and are both great.

I will always be a little put out that Marvel Studios biffed making a Blade movie with Bassam Tariq and Mahershala Ali, as they had every ingredient in place for a great re-interpretation of the character. But, frankly, I’d give up a hundred MCU Blade movies for one Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother.