What would you do for love? In “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother,” Bassam Tariq’s action drama stars Mahershala Ali as Latif, a devout Muslim assassin whose carefully compartmentalized life collapses after the sudden death of his wife. Forced to care for his three children, including an infant daughter who needs breast milk, Latif must contend with an encroaching criminal world at the same time as he confronts the daily demands of grief and fatherhood. The film may arrive in the clothing of an action thriller, but its real subject is love: the fierce, disorienting kind that makes sacrifice feel less like heroism than necessity.
That pressure gives the film its emotional charge. Latif has lived by a personal moral code, balancing religious observance with his work as a highly skilled hitman, but his wife’s death exposes the limits of the order he thought he had created. Becoming the children’s sole caregiver requires him to become present in ways he was not while leading a hidden and violent life.
The film’s strength lies in Latif’s relationship with his children: his wary teenage daughter, Fatiha (Adia); his perceptive young son, Qadir (Jahleel Kamara); and his infant daughter, whose immediate needs drive the central crisis. Reeling from the death of his wife, Khadija (Shakirah DeMesier), Latif is forced to learn the rhythms of a household shaped by an absence he cannot repair.
Tariq finds an impressive balance in the family scenes, allowing grief, frustration, humor, exhaustion, and profound love to coexist without forcing any of it. Ali, Adia, and Kamara make every exchange feel lived in, whether the characters are bickering, testing one another’s patience, sitting in painful silence, or cautiously reaching for connection. The emotional truth of those scenes — not the action alone — is what makes “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” such a solid, affecting film.
A hitman with a moral code, Latif may kill for money, but he has standards: He refuses to use a gun and only takes on assignments if the target really deserves it. He is also a dedicated Muslim and a regular at the local mosque (run by the kindhearted Abdul Malik, played by the always excellent Giancarlo Esposito) — a detail that signals early that this will not be the average shoot-’em-up. Although usually a very smooth operator, Latif has bungled the latest job for his handler, Mike (Laith Nakli). As a result, he is pulled, against his wishes, into an escalating feud involving Mike; Mike’s sleazy porn-impresario nephew, Haddy (Abubakr Ali); and Pastor Hwan Yoon (John Cho), the far-right leader of an aggressive Christian nationalist militia in Texas. The conflict places Latif’s private grief and paternal responsibility in a larger, volatile story about faith, violence, belonging, and extremism.
The title is not merely provocative repetition. It comes from a hadith in which the Prophet Muhammad is asked who deserves a person’s best treatment; the answer is “your mother” three times before “your father.” That religious reference is central to the film’s emotional architecture. Tariq uses it to frame a story about maternal absence, fatherhood, bereavement, duty, and the sacredness of caregiving.
Rather than treating Islam as mere backdrop or using Latif’s faith as an easy contradiction to his violent profession, the film makes his belief system part of the dramatic tension. His work, mourning, family obligations, and sense of spiritual accountability are all in conflict.
Tariq and Ali’s reunion carries additional industry resonance because both were previously attached to Marvel’s long-delayed “Blade” reboot. Tariq left that production in 2022, but their creative connection endured; “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” gave them the chance to collaborate on a wholly original project instead. Several early write-ups have characterized the film as a more personal outlet for the kinetic action language that might have been used in “Blade.”
Tariq’s previous narrative feature, “Mogul Mowgli” (2020), was similarly rooted in questions of Muslim identity, illness, artistic expression, family expectations, and spiritual inheritance. This new film widens that terrain, combining intimate domestic stakes with stylized, physical action.
Early TIFF reviews have been notably enthusiastic, especially about Ali’s performance, which could land him an Oscar nomination. Critics have described the movie as unusually soulful for a hitman thriller: an action film with sharp choreography and dark humor, but also a work driven by grief, fatherhood, spiritual struggle, and the practical crises of raising children alone.
The dark humor lands, but so does the film’s intelligent exploration of love and the power of prayer beyond an exclusively religious context. Weeks later, it is still asking me important questions.
Tariq keeps every second interesting, building a movie that is as beautiful to watch in stillness as it is when the action sequences arrive with gusto. His sense of humor is delicious, particularly in a lighter moment involving a group of young Mormon missionaries who come to Latif’s aid when he needs them.
“Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” is not a conventional assassin movie; it is head and shoulders better. The religious protagonist and the villain’s religious point of view are a potent combination. Who is right? Who is wrong? The film is a deeply personal grief-and-parenthood drama that happens to erupt into violent action — a distinctive and important second feature from Tariq.
