The Mother movie review: Jennifer Lopez unlocks her inner Jason Bourne in Netflix’s dull action thriller

Instead, it’s the kind of film in which everybody communicates in perfunctory dialogue that invariably revolves around extracting information, or warning somebody that they’ve been backstabbed, or delivering bland exposition. It is during one such scene that we learn about the mother’s past. She doesn’t have a name, by the way, in case you were wondering. We’re told that the nameless mother is a veteran of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and has 46 confirmed kills under her belt. Before 30 minutes are up, we also learn that she is an expert marksman, and agile on her feet.

In addition to the dollops of verbal exposition, the movie briefly throws us into a flashback on the front lines of war. This is where the mother first met the antagonist Adrian, played by an under-utilised Joseph Fiennes. Oh, and Gael García Bernal shows up around the halfway mark for exactly one scene, only to deliver a scenery chewing performance that makes you want to watch whatever movie that he thinks he’s in. It certainly looks more enjoyable than this one.

The Mother is marked by odd storytelling choices like this, and it’s frankly shocking to discover that it has three credited writers — Misha Green, Andrea Berloff, and Peter Craig — on the roster. Two of them, believe it or not, have been nominated for Oscars. One of them, Craig, co-wrote the remarkable script for Top Gun: Maverick. But The Mother is a mess, structurally, tonally, and thematically. Why, for instance, does the movie essentially restart around the halfway mark, after having arrived at a moderately satisfying conclusion? And while we’re on the subject, why does the mother keep her true identity from her daughter for over an hour, when everybody already knows the truth?

Of course, we’re meant to empathise with her pain and anguish at not being able to tell the teenage girl who she really is, especially after they’ve gone on the run together, but by then, even the villains know everything. To keep this information from the poor girl feels rather cruel, but it’s actually just an airless attempt to inject drama into the proceedings.

This is about as clumsily handled as the action; a foot-chase sequence in Havana is more Ek Tha Tiger than The Bourne Ultimatum. You can always tell when a stunt double is subbing in for Lopez, who is otherwise quite convincing as a hard-as-nails killing machine. Nobody expects her to do all the action herself, but cinematic deceit such as this needs to be pulled off more elegantly. Not that you’d expect elegance in The Mother, a movie that tries to convince us that beneath all the violence and gore, it’s actually a heartfelt tale about parenthood and redemption. By then, however, you’re probably going to be too disinterested to protest.

The Mother
Director – Niki Caro
Cast – Jennifer Lopez, Omari Hardwick, Joseph Fiennes, Lucy Paez, Paul Raci, Gael García Bernal
Rating – 1.5/5