Holy War: Mahershala Ali Unleashes Fatherly Vengeance
Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is an ambitiously rich, arthouse flavored action film that marks a step up for filmmaker Bassam Tariq and is easily Mahershala Ali’s best role and performance since Moonlight. After revealing a striking command of form and feeling with Mogul Mowgli, we find the familiar machinery of the hitman movie but this is something far more intimate and spiritually searching.
There is a world where Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother doesn’t exist. Back in 2022, Tariq and Ali were prepping a reboot of Blade. Pre-production and casting was underway, sets were being built, before Marvel got cold feet and pulled the plug. Tariq left the film, and Ali endured years of development hell only to see the project go nowhere. Luckily for us, Tariq and Ali found their way back to each other. Somewhere in Hollywood, Kevin Feige is undoubtedly wondering how on Earth he let this duo slip away.
Every hitman has a code, and Latif (Ali) is no different, rationalizing that the gigs he accepts from Mike (Laith Nakli) involve killing people who serve no good in this world. This reasoning allows Latif, a devout Muslim, to keep the faith. However, his devotion to Allah is shaken after his wife suddenly dies, leaving him a sudden single father to his three children, including the youngest, a baby that’s still breastfeeding. Unable to keep formula down, Latif seeks out breastmilk from the Muslim community. That plot alone would be enough to sustain a small-scale, European drama, but this is no ordinary movie.
Tariq inventively dovetails Latif’s search for breastmilk with Mike’s latest request: he wants the hitman to kill Haun Yoon (John Cho, delightfully chewing the scenery), a Korean fundamentalist Christian who has made it his mission to dismantle the Muslim fetish porn site (and alleged sex trafficking ring) run by Mike’s son Hatty (Abukar Ali, a bleached hair comic foil to Ali’s zen like assassin). Latif’s initial refusal not only draws Mike’s ire but the search for breastmilk has him stumble into the crosshairs of Haun’s machine-gun toting Church of the Divine Fire congregation.
It’s something of a miracle that the film doesn’t spiral out of the control, but Tariq, aided by an impressively stoic turn by Ali, has a firm hand on his vision. Out of the picture’s high concept is a story that could be easily read as a metaphor of the West’s Christian drive imperialist actions against Muslim control. The film also mines deep into the struggles to keep the faith, to believe there’s “No God but God” when everything is taken away from you. Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother might be the only wide release film in recent memory that firmly believes in the power of prayer. That this film, rooted so deeply and completely in the Muslim faith, is being released by Amazon feels like Tariq and Ali managed to pull off a caper inside the walls of one of the biggest conglomerates in the world.
But don’t be mistaken — for all the heady ideas, the film is breathlessly entertaining. The action sequences are fantastically choreographed (undoubtedly reflecting both Tariq and Ali’s time in the Marvel trenches). The cinematography by Katelin Arizmendi (the carefully composed Swallow (read review); second unit DP on Dune) marks a talent to watch as she soaks the film in deep, Texas humid primary colors. And if you can’t get Oneohtrix Point Never, Son Lux is a very close second as he puts together a throbbing electronic score that might give the Safdies whiplash.
As a father and a hitman, Latif has his children in mind, with a single goal positioned as his north star, and that’s keeping a “roof over your head, food on the table, and wolves from the door.” That dedication in raising his children and making the world a better place by his blade inevitably blurs the line between being faithful and faithless, being filled with love and emptied by anger. Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother inventively traces Latif’s journey to hell and back and his discovery that if he doesn’t get to heaven, he can at least make sure his kids do.
Reviewed on September 12th at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival (51st edition) – Special Presentations. 112 Minutes.
★★★★/☆☆☆☆☆
