Certificate: 15
Running Time: 116 mins
UK Distributor: Netflix
WHO’S IN THE MOTHER?
Jennifer Lopez, Joseph Fiennes, Omari Hardwick, Gael García Bernal, Paul Raci, Lucy Paez, Jesse Garcia, Yvonne Senat Jones, Edie Falco
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
Niki Caro (director), Misha Green (writer, producer), Andrea Berloff and Peter Craig (writers), Marc Evans, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, Roy Lee, Jennifer Lopez, Benny Medina and Miri Yoon (producers), Ben Seresin (cinematographer), David Coulson (editor)
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
A military operative (Lopez) comes out of hiding to rescue her daughter (Paez)…
WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON THE MOTHER?
Jennifer Lopez has now been in two direct-to-streaming movies this year where she gets to wield guns, sling blades, and unleash brute force onto her oppressors, and The Mother is definitely the superior one over Shotgun Wedding.
That isn’t to say, though, that director Niki Caro’s new action-thriller for Netflix is a complete one-up over Prime Video’s helping of J-Lo. By most accounts, it’s a by-the-numbers plot with decent (but never impressive) action that features many of the beats you may be anticipating, and you’ll most likely forget you even saw it in a month’s time. However, it just so happens that The Mother is ever so slightly better at playing with those regular conventions than most others, retaining enough entertainment factor to remain completely watchable in spite of its familiarity.
In the film, Lopez plays an unnamed former military operative who, after brokering a weapon smuggling deal between corrupt SAS marine Adrian (Joseph Fiennes) and arms dealer Hector (Gael García Bernal), approaches the FBI as an informant. This makes her a target by her ruthless former associates, forcing her to give up her newborn daughter so that she can hide out in a small woodland cabin in Alaska. Twelve years later, she learns from FBI agent Cruise (Omari Hardwick) that Adrian and Hector have tracked down her daughter, Zoe (Lucy Paez), and plan to abduct her as a bargaining chip to take their revenge. She subsequently comes out of hiding to save her daughter, all while facing the wrath of both Adrian and Hector, as well as finally confronting the young girl she was forced to leave behind.
On paper, as well as on the screen, it is relatively straightforward stuff, and doesn’t really do a whole lot to differentiate itself from similarly-plotted movies. It hits all the notes that you’d expect a movie like this to, from the action beat within the first ten minutes – which, mercifully, isn’t one of those that suddenly fades to “three days earlier” or whatever the variation may be – to mountains of exposition being dumped onto characters/the audience to fill them in on some of the context, to blatant symbolism that heavy-handedly connects to the overarching maternal theme, all the way down to villains who are so one-note that one of them is facially scarred so that you know full well that they’re the bad guy (something that those actively campaigning against said trope in action movies are DEFINITELY going to love). Nearly everything you’d expect from a sub-par action movie, especially one that’s going direct to streaming instead of cinemas, is present and correct here.
And yet, as been-there-done-that as it may be, The Mother is still a pretty decent watch. Part of that is because the script, from a story by Lovecraft County’s Misha Green who also co-wrote with Andrea Berloff and Peter Craig, and especially Niki Caro’s direction both give it a nice jolt of life that feels like, regardless of how conventional it is, they were actually trying for it to appear not so manufactured. Caro certainly has a vision, which she executes with a decent pace that doesn’t get too carried away while also not feeling so slow that it quickly becomes dull to watch, and while the script is definitely following a familiar formula, it is at least consistent with itself, and doesn’t waste a whole lot of time on petty drama with the younger Zoe character that could have easily made this more obnoxious.
The other main reason why The Mother just about works is because Jennifer Lopez is genuinely really good in the lead role. Say what you will about her character being pretty one-note – though in fairness, pretty much every character in this movie is like that – but Lopez does have a compelling screen presence, and in a number of action scenes she gets to really throw down something fierce, such as with one extreme piece of violence in an interrogation scene that genuinely made me wince. Lopez also carries a noticeable weight in the more dramatic scenes as well, developing a genuine chemistry with young actor Lucy Paez as the film goes on, enough to where you actually do care about this person and the young ward she’s been assigned to protect. While she does perfectly find in all the rom-coms she often produces and stars in, The Mother does prove her ability to branch out as a legitimately fierce action lead, which hopefully she’ll get more of a chance to do in the future if this film is any indication.
While far from perfect, and certainly conventional, The Mother is at least watchable enough to pass the time accordingly, and like many of Netflix’s other exclusive action titles, it does feel like it was made by actual human beings who genuinely wanted to make a decent movie instead of favouring whatever algorithm they were told to appease to.
SO, TO SUM UP…
The Mother is a conventional but watchable action-thriller that overcomes most of its familiarity with a decently paced script and consistent direction, and a solid lead turn by Jennifer Lopez.
