niki caro

The Mother is a high velocity action thriller with a feminist filmmaker pedigree. Niki Caro directs the fast paced screenplay by Andrea Berloff, Misha Green and Peter Craig, based on a story by Misha Green. Jennifer Lopez, who coproduced the movie, stars as ‘The Mother,’ a former super spy and military assassin whose life is threatened by a very bad man who is seeking revenge for a high stakes deal that went south. The Mother (the character’s mane is never revealed) is determined to save the teenage girl she birthed years ago and reluctantly gave over to a foster family for the child’s protection from the evil revengeful gangster who is determined to kill both mother and daughter.

The Mother tries repeatedly but somewhat fails at being a strong dramatic action movie despite having many action sequences and some scenic US snow filled mountainous and colorful Cuban landscapes, alongside some great production and popular music tracks. The start of the story is a bit traumatizing with Jennifer Lopez as ‘The Mother’ being stabbed in the stomach while she’s pregnant. From there, we follow her emotionally traumatizing journey in having to give up her child to foster care for the baby girls safety, only to step back into the child’s life 12 years later when her own past life as an assassin catches up with her and puts her, and her estranged daughter, at risk.