Two-Time Oscar Winner Gives His Best Performance in a Decade

Amazon MGM Studios Genre cinema endures because of its malleability—its themes and tropes are compatible with any number of psychological, cultural, and political takes.

Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother (September 25, in theaters) confirms this fact, embracing the conventions of both action movies and neo-noirs to tell the story of a Muslim hitman attempting to protect his children while caught between warring factions.

Riven by clashing impulses, it doesn’t completely cohere.

Nonetheless, it gives two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali a role of gripping intensity and (until its climax) compelling complexity—resulting in his finest performance since 2016’s Moonlight .

When he receives word about his wife’s passing, Latif (Ali) is busy murdering a man in a public bathroom with a giant engraved blade.

The killer’s black Islamic garb suggests he’s a professional, though that doesn’t mean things go smoothly.

Discovering that there are no available paper towels, he has to use baby wipes to clean his weapon before leaving the bagged-and-duct-taped corpse on the floor so he can tend to his family business.

Latif’s sloppy departure earns him numerous phone calls from his employer, Mike Mahmoudi (Laith Nakli), which he strategically avoids.

At the service for his deceased spouse, he can’t pray; too consumed are his thoughts (and heart) with anger at God for taking his beloved and then expecting him to bow before Him.

Latif has lost his faith, and he suffers a scolding from his imam, Abdul Malik (Giancarlo Esposito), for skipping prayers and also for being a hitman.

“Violence was a last resort,” says Abdul about Latif’s latest slaying, to which Latif replies that he was avenging a holy man and confesses that he uses a sword rather than guns because, “I’ve got my own code.” That may be true, but the precise nature of it is a tad too vague in Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother .

Its strength lies more in its immersion in Latif’s devout religious life and strained domestic circumstances.

There’s an authenticity to writer/director’s Bassam Tariq’s portrait of Latif’s belief in, and adherence to, Islamic rituals that extends to the man’s dynamic with his teenage daughter Fatiha (Adia), 10-year-old son Quadir (Jahleel Kamara), and infant daughter.

The last of these becomes the film’s unusual catalyst.