THE REEL: Taraji Henson shines in lukewarm 'Proud Mary'
The movie 'Proud Mary' is about a female assassin, Mary (Taraji P. Henson), who goes and takes out a mark that unbeknownst to her has his son in the house at the time. PHOTO | FILE
What you need to know:
- So the movie is about a female assassin, Mary (Taraji P. Henson), who goes and takes out a mark that unbeknownst to her has his son in the house at the time.
- The repercussion of this is that she carries the guilt of having made this child an orphan. So she follows him and upon seeing him struggle, decides to take him up.
- In the fights and shootouts, the actress is not given a get-out-of-jail-free pass.
- However, there was something missing in the storyline to make the plot and the script sync.
Someone asked me to watch Proud Mary and say what I think about it, because her friends had been recommending the movie to her.
She had some hesitation about the movie, and so last weekend I decided to check it out for myself. My brother had also asked if I had watched it, so I thought “Why not?”
Proud Mary is a 2018 American action thriller film directed by Babak Najafi (an Iranian-Swedish film director, screenwriter, and cinematographer who directed London Has Fallen), from a screenplay written by John S. Newman (wrote for television series like Get Shorty, Dirty Work and Days of Our Lives before this) and Christian Swegal (had written two short movies previously: Solar and Stasis).
TARAJI HENSON
So the movie is about a female assassin, Mary (Taraji P. Henson), who goes and takes out a mark that unbeknownst to her has his son in the house at the time.
The repercussion of this is that she carries the guilt of having made this child an orphan. So she follows him and upon seeing him struggle, decides to take him up.
By this time the kid is in with a most feared gang, that rivals that of Mary’s and this just brings the two gangs to an explosive head-to-head fight for supremacy.
And at least we see, in the fights and shootouts, the actress is not given a get-out-of-jail-free pass. Danny (Jahi Di'Allo Winston) gave also a good performance as the kid who Mary takes in.
His range of emotional expression made him a character you definitely felt a tie to. And that’s as far as my praise goes.
Taraji is a mean-face, kick-ass lady when the movie required her to be, and we all know her emotional performances can literally jump off the screen and yank the tears right from the ducts.
However, there was something missing in the storyline to make the plot and the script sync.
I absolutely didn’t believe Danny Glover as Benny, the bossman of Mary’s gang. He just didn’t come out like (I know this is a real throwback) Delroy Lindo in 2000 Romeo Must Die.
That was, to me, one of the best portrayals of a charismatic, black gang leader. Danny Glover, might be his age or style of acting, looked out of place in this character.
SCENE
There’s a part where a member who’s been loyal to Mary’s gang is killed in order to appease the other side, but then the other side still lashes out and I don’t understand what this whole part was about.
Was it just to buy time so that the movie has a certain runtime, or what was the point of this scene?
Then there are issues that are introduced later in the movie, as it continues, that we were not hinted at before they come up.
It’s like the writers were shoring up the story as it went on. They say the best fictional stories should not have coincidences, but this one had a few of them.
In the end I think having a series writer and short movies writer on the same project didn’t quite give the middle ground for a movie that the producers were hoping for.
They may have been banking on Taraji’s performances and saleability to bring the movie home. Unfortunately there’s only so much even a woman can do. It’s an okay movie for a quiet, evening watch.
