Proud Mary

An incoherent mess, Proud Mary follows Taraji P. Henson’s title assassin as she begins looking after the young son (Jahi Di’Allo Winston’s Danny) of a past victim – with problems ensuing as Mary’s boss (Danny Glover’s Benny) and cohorts become suspicious of her activities. Filmmaker Babak Najafi has infused Proud Mary with a decidedly low-rent sensibility that’s reflected in its various attributes, including less-than-professional visuals and a choppy, disjointed storyline that rarely makes sense – with, in terms of the latter, John Stuart Newman, Christian Swegal, and Steve Antin delivering a narrative that’s missing key elements like clear plotting and character development. (There is, for example, a sequence in which Mary arranges the killing of a colleague, with her motivations for doing so left bafflingly unspoken.) It’s consequently not surprising to note that the movie suffers from an almost total lack of momentum, while Najafi’s ongoing efforts at establishing a convincing bond between Henson and Winston’s respective characters prove fruitless (ie there’s never a point at which Mary’s affection towards Danny makes any real sense). And although the film admittedly does boast a small handful of effective action sequences (eg Mary takes on a warehouse full of armed goons), Proud Mary ultimately comes off as a misbegotten endeavor that’d be more at home within the realm of straight-to-streaming trash.

*1/2 out of ****