Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother ★★★½

Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is a story of juxtapositions. Drama and action. Pensive and over-the-top. Sacred and profane. Protection and endangerment. Mother and father.

Latif (Mahershala Ali) is a hitman. When he is away from home, his wife takes care of their two children and their newborn baby. Given his occupation, Latif has to maintain a distance between his work and his family. But when he receives a call in the middle of a job informing him that his wife has unexpectedly passed away, this distance starts to close.

With a newborn baby fed by breastmilk who refuses formula, Latif is in an immediate dilemma. He goes to his mosque which has a tight-knit community to determine where to get breastmilk. Despite his line of work, Latif is devoutly religious and receives regular guidance from the mosque’s imam Abdul Malik (Giancarlo Esposito). Abdul is aware of Latif’s occupation and just as the distance between his occupation and his family starts to close, the mosque becomes embroiled in Latif’s business. Mike Mahmoudi (Laith Nakli), Latif’s boss, approaches Latif at the mosque and demands that Latif protects Mike’s nephew Haddy (Abubakr Ali) through carrying out a hit on Hwan Yoon (John Cho), a Korean American pastor who was a veteran of the Iraq War. During the war, Yoon had a near death experience where he claims he was brought back to life through his mother’s prayers. Since returning from Iraq, Yoon has donned a cowboy hat, acquired gold teeth, and embraced evangelism, preaching about Christ amidst a congregation of armed followers. His crusade is against sin and moral degradation, and his next target (in every violent sense of the word) is Haddy who runs an adult film website.

Although this sordid series of circumstances may seem at odds with Latif’s simple pursuit of breastmilk for his baby, Latif’s refusal to accept the job is made increasingly difficult as Latif’s journey to procure breastmilk is its own action-packed undertaking and leads to inadvertent connections with Mike, Haddy, and Yoon. Now having to act as both father and mother to his children, Latif could not be less willing to become involved, yet he and his children are drawn in. Unaware of their father’s occupation, Latif’s internal struggle is in determining how to preserve his children’s innocence and their conception of him as a father and as a provider.

Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is most interested in these personal conflicts, and in reconciling seemingly contrasting themes within a single narrative. The film has a strong focus on religion with characters of the Christian, Muslim, and Mormon faiths and depicts religious experience – prayer, community, shelter, song – along with fanaticism and sacrilege. A wholesome moment in the film occurs when Latif’s Mormon neighbors provide shelter to Latif when they are in danger, and the mosque and Latif’s devoutness in his faith likewise offers a similar refuge. The intensity of Latif’s internal conflict and his reluctance in becoming involved with the hit on Yoon offer a somber tone to the film that suppresses how over-the-top and bizarre certain sequences in the film become. Director Bassam Tariq maintains a hard-to-hold balance between polar opposites in tone and themes that few directors manage to do (only Bong Joon-ho comes to mind immediately). Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother also has its share of juvenile humor that eases its brooding with comic relief through its younger, Gen Z characters, and somehow furries are a recurring mention over the course of the film that will draw an impression from audiences that starts at perverse and surprisingly ends as heartwarming.

The meaning of the title of Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, explained through opening intertitles, reveals early the film’s emphasis on the mother and the significance of maternal roles within a family. It comes from a Hadith parable where Muhammad replies “your mother” after being asked who is most deserving of care three consecutive times before replying “your father.” Latif, now having to additionally take on the role of the mother within his family, is faced with the weight of these responsibilities, and the film shows the lengths Latif will go to protect his children and feed his newborn. As a hitman, Latif’s brawn and formidable presence suggest the physicality that the encounters between Latif and those who endanger his family requires.

After being cast as Marvel’s Blade, Mahershala Ali took on the physical preparation required for the role and was trained in sword fighting. The film went through delays and was ultimately cancelled, but it did connect him with the film’s planned director Bassam Tariq. Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is a result of their collaboration, and even though the film largely came about by circumstance, it has tunnel vision in its intent. Its emphasis on spirituality and a self-imposed moral code make Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother a worthy successor of Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, and while Marvel audiences may not be as keen to enjoy an introspective family drama, Latif’s drive and strength required to protect his family does bear a resemblance to saving the world from supervillains.