Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)
YOUR MOTHER YOUR MOTHER YOUR MOTHER (2026)
Starring Mahershala Ali, John Cho, Giancarlo Esposito, Abubakr Ali, Tramell Tillman, Tiffany Boone, Laith Nakli, Adia, Jahleel Kamara, John Henry Ward, Alyssa Gihee Kim, Ashley P. Jones, Aaron Goodson, Irene Santiago, Nettie Kraft, Merav Ellis, Aisha Azmat Ali, Shawn Jain, Ali Alsaleh, Alec Rayme, Mohammad Amireh, Muhsin Aziz Ahmad and Thabit Uqdah.
Screenplay by Bassam Tariq.
Directed by Bassam Tariq.
Distributed by Orion Pictures/MGM. 112 minutes. Rated R.
Much like its main character, Bassam Tariq’s movie Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother spends most of its screentime trying to balance two nearly polar-opposite identities at once. That push-and-pull can become frustrating – for the character, and for the film itself.
That main character is Latif (Mahershala Ali), a stoic former military man. He is an extremely devout Muslim who is very engaged in his mosque, where the imam (Giancarlo Esposito) of the mosque is a father figure to him. Latif works for a security company. Early on in the film his wife suddenly dies, leaving Latif to care for their three children, a teenaged girl, an eight-year-old boy and an infant girl. The infant quickly becomes his most urgent concern – she won’t eat formula and they are quickly running low on the mother’s milk left by his late wife. He tries to shield all of his children from the harsh realities of life and spends much of his time searching for fresh milk to keep his baby alive.
However, his work for the security company somewhat disguises the deep secret in his life – that he has worked as a hitman for hire for his boss. Now that he is caring for his children alone, he tries to remove himself from his violent sidelight. However, to paraphrase Michael Corleone in the worst Godfather film, every time he thinks he is out, they pull him right back in. His boss is not willing to let him just walk away. Despite all of his attempts to avoid it, Latif eventually ends up smack in the middle of a war between a gang of Egyptian pornographers and a gun-happy Evangelical preacher and his violent flock.
And soon everyone is gunning not just for Latif, but for his family as well.
Still, Latif is one of those guys that you see so often in action movies (and so rarely in real life) – basically a one-man fighting machine. He can storm into crowded buildings and singlehandedly fight off – or kill – dozens of trained guards and assassins, then just walk away. In fairness, Latif is often injured in these fights, so he is not completely impervious – but he always seems to survive to fight another day.
Honestly, I found his home life and struggles much more intriguing than the boilerplate gonzo violence scenes, and that is the biggest problem with Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother. There are two films smashed together into one – one heartfelt, dramatic and touching, the other cartoonish and over-the-top.
I’m totally here for the first film. The second film lost me long before the end.
While Your Mother focuses on Latif’s life, his faith, his family and his community, it is fascinating. But it goes violently off course much of the time that the crime intrudes – pun intended. Some of the crime beats work, but far more fall flat.
However, it is only through his family and his community that we truly come to understand Latif as a man. (And no, I do not consider fighting and killing to be the real sign of manhood.) He will sacrifice anything for his children – particularly since he was not around enough when their mother was alive, as he was often working. He also has a sweetly respectful relationship with the imam, one of the few people who knows Latif’s secret profession and often gives him hell about it.
It gets a little quirky sometimes. He catches his teen daughter (Adia) watching some furry soft core on his computer. His son (Jahleel Kamara) takes just a bit too much joy in reliving the moment when one lactating stripper pulled out her boob and let their baby sister nurse from her while he watched. Latif also nearly decked his boss’ sleazy nephew (Abubakr Ali) for checking his daughter out.
It also shows the life of a devout Muslim in a way that is not often explored in mainstream cinema – and is fascinating for it.
If only Tariq stuck with this stuff. In fact, Your Mother is a very religious movie – at least for the Muslim faith. The Evangelicals are much more problematic. (More on that soon.)
Not even all Muslims come out looking good. Take Latif’s boss at the security company, Mike (Laith Nakli). The guy makes most of his real money running a series of strip clubs and porno sites – one even featured hijab sex, which I suppose is a specialized kink. Much of that side of his business is run by his ne’er-do-well nephew Hatty.
Despite the fact that he knows Latif is in mourning and caring for his kids, Mike insists he take on a job – killing the eccentric Evangelist/Christian Nationalist preacher Hwan Yoon (John Cho, playing way against type) who is attempting to convert their strip clubs into houses of worship and eradicate all pornography.
When Latif refuses the job, Mike threatens his family if he does not take it. Latif looks into it half-heartedly but has no plan on pulling it off. Then, somehow Hwan Yoon also finds out about the contract, and the gun-toting, grillz-wearing, over-the-top crazy pastor comes after Latif and his family as well. It seems the pastor loves guns as much as he loves God, and he has a small arsenal he’s not afraid to use in the name of Jesus.
How is this stuff even in the same movie as the more thoughtful family drama? All the bloody gunfights and knife fights crammed into the last half of the movie just distract from all of the film’s best qualities.
Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother works – to the extent that it does – completely due to the strong, subtle, grounding performance by Mahershala Ali, and it is good to see him getting another character this significant after slightly disappearing in the eight years after his Best Supporting Actor wins for Moonlight and Green Book. Even when the script drags Latif into the less interesting parts of the role, Ali commands the camera.
Also holding things together are Adia as his scared, but caring daughter and Esposito as the imam. And what about Cho, essentially the only other real “name” actor here? Well, as noted before, his character is cartoonish and way over the top, although I’ll give Cho the benefit of the doubt that he was performing it as the script required. Most of the other supporting cast is trapped in the film’s more exaggerated half, playing characters who feel more like genre caricatures than real people.
In only his second feature film, writer/director Tariq shows some definite promise, but he also shows some serious red flags. I want to give him credit for all that is good about Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother – because much is good here. But the missteps are his as well. Hopefully eventually he will feel confident enough to make the serious story that is obviously inside him without pandering to action-adventure cliches.
Ultimately, Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is a frustrating mix of profound and preposterous. When it leans into Latif’s grief, faith and family, it is a moving and quietly powerful character study. When it lunges toward action‑movie excess, it loses its footing. There is a terrific film buried somewhere inside this one – but it keeps getting drowned out by the commotion.
Jay S. Jacobs
Copyright ©2026 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: October 16, 2026.
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