'The Mother' A Review

The Mother is an action/thriller movie about ex-military contractor The Mother(Jennifer Lopez) who is the go-between and in a love triangle between an illegal arms dealer and ex-SAS Marine facilitating smuggling arms. When she discovers the two are also involved in human trafficking she reports them to the FBI. The movie opens on a pregnant The Mother in an FBI safehouse giving a statement which is subsequently attacked. The Mother escapes, gives her child up for adoption, then goes into hiding in Alaska. 12 years later the two baddies locate her daughter Zoe(Lucy Paez) and The Mother comes out of retirement to protect her cub.

Lopez is a star and she carries the movie imbuing it with presence, weight, and (if somewhat uneven) emotion. This is helped by Lopez appearing to do much of her own stunt work. She clearly relishes the opportunity to be the lead in an action flick and she's earned it. The benefit of the doubt should be given to any child actor but Paez is undeniably green and the script doesn't help her out giving her non-sensical, illogical hoops to jump through as well as profoundly unbelievable behaviors. They cast two wonderful actors as the baddies- Joseph Fiennes and Gael García Bernal- but they are onscreen so briefly, their parts so small, they have little to no impact and it makes you wonder how they got those big talents for such non-existent roles.

The production design is effective but has that aura of gloom that seems to hang over every all movies in this genre of the past several years. The costuming is competent but not flashy, the soundtrack amiable if a bit on the nose. The action sequences are well put together but lack the impact they should because the movie is overlong with uneven pacing. The script is the biggest problem, some amalgamation of Taken and the copycats it inspired. It's great that Lopez is the lead and it's an interesting idea to tie motherhood thematically into this kind of genre piece but it just doesn't come together.

Decent action but overlong, a great lead performance mostly squandered in an uninspired story. In many ways a recycling of a movie Netflix just released 6 months ago- Lou.

Currently streaming on Netflix.

Don't See It.