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Movie hitmen don’t tend to come with complex motivations. They need the money. They had a lousy childhood. Or their beloved wife has died. Latif (Mahershala Ali), the hero of Bassam Tariq's Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, is indeed mourning his recently departed spouse. But it’s fair to say that he’s still the first assassin to be driven primarily by an urgent need for breastmilk.
With his wife gone and his infant Aziza allergic to formula, he has to find a wet nurse, quickly. He rounds up his preteen son Qadir (Jahleel Kamara) and his teenage daughter Fatiha (Adia), and they head to their family’s Houston mosque for help. But when the imam (Giancarlo Esposito) can't help, he runs into Mike (Laith Nakli), a mobster who thinks Latif owes him a favour. He’s calling it in now, by asking him to kill Pastor Hwan (John Cho). The gun-toting pastor is no angel, but he’s put himself in the mob’s crosshairs by publicly calling out their Muslim-themed porn business.
As it happens, one of Mike’s actresses just had a baby, so she can help nurse. But that leads to more trouble, and soon Latif and his family are spending half their time trying to feed Aziza, and half their time dodging men determined to murder them.
It’s a genre thriller, but Latif is no John Wick
This isn’t the only overwhelming conflict they have to live with, though, because while Latif is a genuinely grieving widow, devoted father, and faithful Muslim, he's also a stone-cold killer. He'll swiftly remind you that he has a code: he doesn’t use guns. But he sure knows his way around a sword.
All of this probably sounds like more fun than it actually is. Ali, a two-time Academy Award winner (for Moonlight and Green Book), approaches Your Mother with as much gravitas as he would any Oscar drama. Tariq (Mogul Mowgli) views urban Texas through a dark and grainy lens, and backs even the action with Son Lux's eerily solemn score. It's still a genre thriller, but Latif is no John Wick. While the action scenes are smoothly choreographed and unapologetically lethal, both Tariq and Ali are primarily concerned with the moral choices haunting their ethical assassin.
What's more, a case could be made that the real hero isn't even Latif; it's Fatiha. She is his witness and his sidekick, his conscience and his legacy. And while it's no surprise that Ali is unerringly charismatic, Adia more than holds her own. Tariq works hard to explore the dichotomies of faith and frailty, but Latif is so flawed that this effort risks feeling hollow. It's really Fatiha’s pain, and her prayer, that give her father's story the weight it wants.
In US theaters now. UK release still to be announced.