TIFF Review: Bassam Tariq’s Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is unlike any action movie you’ll see this year

Mahershala Ali and filmmaker Bassam Tariq were supposed to make a Blade reboot for Marvel, but that project eventually fell apart. What emerges instead is Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, an original action-drama starring Ali and written and directed by Tariq. It is unquestionably a far better movie than anything we would have gotten from Marvel, though the action scenes hint at what might have been (Marvel, you really fumbled a baddie).

The film opens cutting between two scenes, as Latif (Ali) brutally slays a man in a bathroom—a little bit reminiscent of Daniel Craig’s bold introduction as James Bond in Casino Royale—and his daughter, Fatiha (Adia), attends to her suddenly, unexpectedly deceased mother. Voice over narration recites a hadith, about a man asking the prophet who is most deserving of respect, and the prophet replies, “Your mother,” three times, only upon the fourth question does the prophet reply, “Your father.” This hadith provides the narrative underpinning for the film, in which Latif struggles to fill the three-times bigger shoes of his late wife.

Latif is man in a torment nexus, grieving but unable to indulge his grief because he has three children to take care of. Besides Fatiha, there is middle child Qadir (Jahleel Kamara), and baby Aziza (twins Brooklyn and Jaxon Hughes), who cannot keep formula down. With the last of his wife’s breast milk running out, Latif goes on an odyssey across Houston to find more milk for Aziza. Your Mother is probably the most rad action movie to emerge since John Wick, and the entire conflict is predicated on the urgent need for breast milk. It’s a radically demonstrative setup, as what Latif needs most is one thing only his wife could provide. Your mother, your mother, your mother.

The first half of Your Mother is almost meditative. There are bouts of action and comedy—the film includes some truly laugh-out-loud moments that highlight the ridiculousness of parenting—but mostly it is about Latif and his struggle to balance his deep faith as a Muslim, his role as a father, and his side hustle as a hitman. He is trying to focus on his family, but his old boss, Mike (Laith Nakli), wants Latif to kill a fundamentalist pastor named Hwan Yoon (John Cho in a hilariously sleazy role), because Hwan is threatening to kill Mike’s nephew, Hatty (Abukar Ali). Hatty makes particularly degrading p-rn that targets the Muslim community, but Hatty is also the source of some of the film’s best comedy.

Your Mother asks many of the same questions as Wild Horse Nine, about grace and forgiveness and bad men seeking redemption, but where Martin McDonagh approaches those questions from a Catholic perspective, Tariq roots his story in Islam. There is no question that Latif is a devout man, but the inherent conflict of his faith and his job is unavoidable. He is a hypocrite, no matter how much he tells himself he is “protecting” his community through his work. But Tariq also takes a more hopeful view than McDonagh, finding redemption in family. Latif’s children are his saving grace, and Your Mother offers a view of grace as not one big action, but constant redemptive motion propelled by love.

While Your Mother is beautifully written and acted, it is also incredibly well directed. Working with cinematographer Katelin Arizmendi, Tariq stages bold, almost balletic fight scenes. And yes, we get to see the skills Ali gained preparing for Blade, and damn, what could have been, but what is are the thrilling action sequences Tariq puts together with stunt coordinator Adam Hart. When Latif finally goes up against Hwan Yoon’s deranged church, the results are astounding, a series of frantic, brutal, electric action sequences. Some might be put off by how much the film focuses on Latif’s inner life, but Tariq strikes a delicate balance between a portrait of a man enduring an almost unendurable trial, and a straight up action flick that builds up to an extremely satisfying climax.

Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is not like any action movie you’ll see this year, or next year, or probably the year after that. It’s introspective, funny, and fierce in turns, and it’s anchored by a spectacular performance from Mahershala Ali. (Also, the score from Son Lux is the best I’ve heard this year so far.) It’s not an outright action flick, but Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is an action movie for people who enjoy action heroes who think a little about what they’re doing, and action films that consider the ramifications of the violence being done, on both the community and the person committing it.

Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother will play exclusively in theaters from September 25, 2026.