“Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” Is a Meditation on Faith and Violence

Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother (Bassam Tariq, 2026) 3½ out of 5 stars

Much of the press leading up to Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother has ironically focused on the film its director never got to make. Writer/director Bassam Tariq was infamously lined up to direct Academy Award-winner Mahershala Ali in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s take on Blade. However, after years of creative differences, the two parted ways with Marvel on rocky terms. Now, Tariq and Ali have reunited for an original feature inspired by their shared Muslim faith. Audiences speculated that the film would reuse their ideas for Blade, but the end result turned out to be quite different.

​To most people in Houston’s Muslim community, Latif (Mahershala Ali, Leave the World Behind) is a wise Quran teacher and perfume salesman. His eldest children, Fatiha (Adia) and Qadir (Jahleel Kamara), think he’s stern and withholding of affection. What none of them realize is that Latif has spent years moonlighting as a hitman, eliminating targets who threaten the faith (like local skinheads). However, Latif’s carefully balanced world shatters with the death of his wife, Khadijah (Shakirah Demesier).

To make matters worse, their newborn baby Aziza is allergic to formula, and Khadijah only left a handful of breastmilk bags behind. Seeing that Latif’s been backed into a corner, his handler, Mike (Laith Nakli, Lucky Lu), offers him one last job: assassinate Hwan Yoon (John Cho, Ghosted), a right-wing evangelical pastor who’s launching an armed crusade on pornographers; specifically, on Mike’s nephew, Hatty (Abubakr Ali). Now, Latif must decide what he’s willing to do to protect his family.

​Finally able to play a holy warrior, Mahershala Ali gets to explore multiple facets of his personality: the patience of a devoted Muslim, the desperation of a single parent, and the shame of an absentee father. There’s so much emotion bubbling under the surface that he’s barely holding back. By that same token, newcomer Adia truly holds her own with Ali in a breakthrough performance. As a grieving fifteen-year-old, Fatiha has grown more willing to question Latif to his face. Her rebellion leads her down a path that could eventually take her away from the faith, just as it did for Hatty.

​Tariq uses all these characters to tackle a wide variety of ideas: fatherhood, sexuality, forgiveness, and hypocrisy. While this may sound like a mishmash of tones, it never feels too implausible. Latif feels as if Forest Whitaker’s Ghost Dog existed in the real world and had to genuinely grapple with maintaining his code. Of all the leads, John Cho’s performance as Pastor Hwan is admittedly the most bombastic, but he feels perfectly in line with how a self-righteous fanatic would act.

​Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is a film with many things on its mind. Instead of being a nonstop action flick, it’s far more patient and experimental than an MCU film would ever be. Granted, Ali does get to finally show off his swordplay training, but this isn’t a film that revels in violence. It avoids bloodshed whenever possible, exploring the mindset of a man who has to stop being a provider and learn to be a father.