The Mother review
Pity the poor mothers who get convinced The Mother is fitting entertainment for Mother’s Day weekend.
This is a sad excuse of an undercooked, underdeveloped action thriller that botches its very simple premise.
After a run of more comedic movies like Marry Me and Shotgun Wedding, Jennifer Lopez switches it up for an action thriller. Recognizing she fell in with the wrong crowd — the eccentric Alvarez (Gael García Bernal, Old) and SAS agent Adrien (Joseph Fiennes, Hercules) — a former military sniper tries to strike a deal with the feds in a witness protection program.
Lopez’s character is never named for some weird reason. She tries to warn the lead investigator, Cruise (Omari Hardwick, Army of the Dead), but it arrives too late.
Adrien takes out the protection team with scary precision, nearly killing Cruise and the sniper, who’s in the final stages of her pregnancy. With Adrien still on the loose, the sniper agrees to put her newborn daughter into federal placement with a normal family so she’ll be safe.
For the first 12 years there’s no problem until Cruise warns the sniper Alvarez and Adrien have somehow doped out her daughter’s, Zoe (Lucy Paez) identity.
This is the first of many conveniences screenwriters Misha Green (Lovecraft Country), Andrea Berloff (Straight Outta Compton) and Peter Craig (The Batman) liberally throw in to keep the film going beyond its “best if ended by” time stamp.
The sniper and Cruise engage in a series of chases, a brutal interrogation scene and a shootout delight before rescuing Zoe. Lopez has no trouble credibly pulling off the Liam Neeson steely focused determination in punching, stabbing, shooting and the occasional impaling.
Alvarez casually asks if he’s the father but there’s no satisfying Maury Povich reveal making it a man unnecessary subplot. After a very convoluted middle act, the sniper is forced to bring Zoe back to her Alaskan cabin.
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The head scratching nature of the plot continues as the sniper decides she needs to train Zoe in the ways of the master sniper/soldier in the off chance that she’d ever come into a scenario where she’s got a sniper rifle and needs to defend herself. This is where the film starts to drag and bloats what should have been a 90-minute special to nearly two hours.
These bonding scenes are dull as the sniper won’t offer any worthwhile background on her past while trying to leapfrog Zoe’s adopted parents on milestone moments like teaching her how to drive…at age 12. You better believe those lessons are foreshadowed for the final act.
Zoe’s adopted parents are cast to the sidelines early on with only her mother, Sonya (Yvonne Senat Jones), having any lines. The father weirdly is just positioned in the background as if he’s disinterested.
Director Niki Caro rarely takes chances to do something different in staging the action or avoid leaning too hard into the standard beats of the genre. Caro’s direction is competent, but there’s nothing to make it stand out in a sea of revenge thrillers. Another problem is the soundtrack is messy with questionable song choices that don’t fit the moment and the score goes too melodramatic.
The final act plays out like a choose your own adventure gone sideways with puzzling choices like Zoe channeling Kim Bauer with wolf cubs, Adrien going taking the most indirect means to get the sniper and the sniper opting for an all-black uniform to “blend in” in the snow.
Lopez is game, but the sketchy, limp script does her no favors. Despite the title, there’s no need to add this to your Mother’s Day viewing list.
Rating: 3 out of 10
Photo Credit: Netflix