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Plot: A deadly female assassin comes out of hiding to protect the daughter that she gave up years before, while on the run from dangerous men.

Review: Since it was first announced over a year ago, I have been mildly intrigued by The Mother. With a mysterious plot featuring Jennifer Lopez as a vengeful parent, I expected this film to be a cookie-cutter action replica of John Wick and the myriad spin-offs and copycats it has spawned. Instead, this film benefits from having a gritty but realistic plot that is accentuated by bursts of violence. With a solid director and the burgeoning talent of writer Misha Green, The Mother is a solid throwback thriller that echoes the action flicks of the late 1990s. With some brutal violence and engaging character development, The Mother is a better offering than the hit-or-miss fare churned out by the Netflix machine.

The Mother starts...

Jennifer Lopez in The Mother Photo: Netflix In the pantheon of female assassin films, many have shown grit and gravitas, but only a handful have nailed their targets. This is especially true in the case of original features for the streaming services. While recent international offerings from Netflix—like Kill Boksoon...

Jennifer Lopez in The MotherPhoto: Netflix

In the pantheon of female assassin films, many have shown grit and gravitas, but only a handful have nailed their targets. This is especially true in the case of original features for the streaming services. While recent international offerings from Netflix—like Kill Boksoon...

“The Mother” is like a lot of Netflix action-dramas of late: A mix of different genres with hints of a darker, possibly richer story, that ended up being excised due to budget and/or time constraints.

There is a lot of well-worn inspiration to be found in its familiar plot, from the survivalist parent/daughter relationship found in the 2011 feature “Hanna” to another Jennifer Lopez feature, 2018’s “Second Act” in which Lopez’s character is also at odds with a daughter she gave up at birth named Zoe.

All of this is to say a film like “The Mother” shouldn’t work, and it doesn’t completely gel 100 percent. But in the hands of Jennifer Lopez and director Niki Caro, the film as a whole mostly comes together as an action-packed (at times), contemplative (at times) and entertaining story of maternal self-sacrifice.

The audience meets Jennifer Lopez as an unnamed...

Make no mistake, the title character in the enjoyably ridiculous The Mother is given no name, but there’s never any doubt that she’s Jennifer Lopez. From the runway-ready fur hoodie she sports in the Alaskan wilderness to the flawless eye makeup and dewy complexion that withstand everything from childbirth to a knife fight in the snowbound woods, this is a performance so loaded with celebrity baggage it’s never going to be fully convincing as a deadly assassin. Yet JLo of course is the chief reason to watch Niki Caro’s action thriller for Netflix, which is better than average, as star-driven streaming features go.

New Zealander Caro got unlucky with her live-action Mulan remake, when its 2020 theatrical release was delayed and eventually scuttled by the pandemic, leaving the epic’s spectacular visuals to be diminished on Disney+. This latest feature from the director who broke out in...

Jennifer Lopez may be singlehandedly able to revive the rom-com, but she’s here to remind us she can carry other blockbuster genres: The crime thriller. It’s been awhile since Lopez set her sights on a high-stakes action drama (as she did in Steven Soderbergh’s 1998 hit “Out of Sight”), but clearly she hasn’t forgotten her combat training. Deadly serious with a killer instinct, she is hardly maternal in “The Mother,” a tense thriller about a sharpshooter who must give up her child and go into hiding after double crossing two nefarious exes.

Directed by Kiwi filmmaker Niki Caro, “The Mother” sees two business-savvy women making a mark on the most masculine of genres — and pulling no punches. While it’s far from groundbreaking, “The Mother” is a satisfying nail-biter grounded in a genuine (albeit familiar) emotional setup. Besides, we’ve seen enough violent thrillers about lone wolf...

Mother’s Day is on the horizon, and it’s natural to celebrate those who give their all to their families. Mothers like Sarah Connor, Ripley, and Charlie Baltimore carry on the tradition of action heroines that are lionesses protecting their cubs from the threats of predators. Jennifer Lopez seeks to join the badass mothers with her new action thriller, The Mother. Netflix has just dropped the trailer showcasing Lopez’s new physical prowess to take down all comers threatening to hurt her daughter to get to her.

The official synopsis from Netflix reads,

A deadly female assassin comes out of hiding to protect the daughter that she gave up years before, while on the run from dangerous men.

The cast includes Lopez as the titular Mother. Lucy Paez, from films Silencio andThe Exorcism of Carmen Farias, plays Zoe, the Mother’s 12-year-old daughter. Omari Hardwick, known for Kick-Ass,...

Opening in theaters on May 3 is Long Shot.

Wamg is giving away free passes for tonight’s advance screening in the St. Louis area at 7pm.

https://longshot.movie/

Add you name and email address in our comments section below.

No Purchase Required. A pass does not guarantee a seat at a screening. Seating is on a first-come, first served basis. The theater is overbooked to assure a full house.

Fred Flarsky (Seth Rogen) is a gifted and free-spirited journalist with an affinity for trouble. Charlotte Field (Charlize Theron) is one of the most influential women in the world. Smart, sophisticated, and accomplished, she’s a powerhouse diplomat with a talent for…well, mostly everything. The two have nothing in common, except that she was his babysitter and childhood crush.

When Fred unexpectedly reconnects with Charlotte, he charms her with his self-deprecating humor and his memories of her youthful idealism.