Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother Is So Much More Than The Blade We Never Got

If you’re a Marvel fan, the dissolution of the franchise’s Blade reboot aches like a dagger between the ribs. Marvel President Kevin Feige had five years to take a perfect premise — and the perfect successor to Wesley Snipes’ Daywalker, Mahershala Ali — and deliver an easy lay-up. After the departure of three different directors, twice as many writers, and Ali himself, it’s painfully clear this version of Blade just wasn’t to be. Even so, it’s impossible to move on, if only because every mention of the scrapped film feels like a twist of the knife.

Ali and director Bassam Tariq, who was originally set to helm Blade, have since teamed up to make their own answer to that ill-fated film. The lead-up to Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother has been overwhelmed by references to Blade, and not for no reason: even Ali has been outspoken about Blade’s failure and his desire to put his training to use. Demoralizing as it must have been to wait in vain for Marvel to get its act together, all that foot-dragging did make this film possible — and Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is probably leagues better than anything we might have gotten from Marvel, anyway.

It’s a shame that Your Mother seems inextricable from the shadow of Blade, because it deserves to stand on its own, far removed from the strife of Marvel’s folly. It marches to the beat of its own aching, angsty heart, and thrums with the same uncut grit that Tariq delivered in his debut feature, Mogul Mowgli. Ali is Latif, a machete-slinging hitman balancing his unsavory duties with his Muslim faith. When his wife suddenly passes away, leaving him in charge of his three young kids, a hazy crisis of conscience shatters under the weight of blindsiding grief. Latif tentatively retires to better care for his headstrong eldest daughter Fatiha (Adia), her precocious brother Qadir (Jahleel Kamara), and Aziza (Brooklyn and Jaxson Hughes), an adorable baby too young to drink anything but breast milk.

It’s the latter dilemma that occupies most of Latif’s time in Your Mother’s first act. Aziza won’t drink baby formula, which forces her hapless dad to ping-pong his way across Houston, searching desperately for a solution. Tariq’s screenplay makes brilliant use of this dilemma. As Latif exhausts one resource after another, Your Mother is also introducing the allies and potential threats that orbit his world: his imam, Abdul Malik (Giancarlo Esposito), his well-to-do brother (Tramell Tillman), his former employer Mike (Laith Nakli). Everyone’s pulling Latif in a different direction, be it the more devout path serving at his mosque, a straight-laced career, or a return to his duties as “the sword” Mike wields against his enemies.

No matter where Latif turns, he’s faced with his inadequacy. The title of the film is both a reference to a Hadith about cherishing mothers above all, and a nod to the newly torn void in his world. He cannot replace his late wife, and he can’t sustain his family by shedding blood, either. Unfortunately, walking away from his career as a hitman isn’t exactly an option. Mike still expects his services, and sooner rather than later. His nephew Haddy (Abubakr Ali), an amateur producer of “halal” adult films, has run afoul of the skeevy Hwan Joon (a startling John Cho), the founder of a fast-spreading megachurch who’s on a crusade against porn.

A shell-shocked veteran whose near-death experience overseas turned him into a gun-toting evangelical, Hwan Joon is arguably the most fun Cho has had in a very long time. The scenes he eventually shares with Ali are positively electric, positioning Your Mother as an allegory, of sorts, for the two distinct brands of religion dominating the nation. There are intriguing parallels in the disparate ways Latif and Hwan Joon embrace violence: each sees themself as an avenging angel, but Latif’s quiet resignation is a far cry from the grating zeal with which his new adversary glorifies gunplay. It’s hard not to be skeeved out as he gathers supporters and converts strip clubs into neon-drenched satellite churches — but Your Mother doesn’t let Latif off the hook, either.

Tariq navigates a tonal minefield as he explores the hypocrisies these two men share, and the unique brand of devotion that gives them more similarities than differences. At the risk of citing more comparisons to Marvel, Your Mother perfects one of the franchise’s more grating tropes in making its villain a warped mirror image of its hero. It works because Tariq’s script explores that push-and-pull with the attention to detail it deserves, while his bloody, balletic direction helps Your Mother avoid another toothless character study.

This film might walk the walk of a revenge thriller, but the story beneath the splashy, wire-taut action overflows with soul, with questions that aren’t so easily answered within a two-hour runtime. Its text is simple enough on its face, taking Latif on a redemptive journey to reconnect with his family and his faith — but it’s deceptively dense in the best way, leaving us to chew on the same topics that Latif finds himself grappling with. To watch Tariq work is to recognize that Marvel never would have known what to do with his talents. Losing his voice on Blade might seem like wasted potential, but if it gave us something as fresh and fearless as Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, it’s a trade-off better than we deserve.

Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother opens in theaters on September 25.