Thriller that fires blanks

You can tell a lot about neo-blaxploitation thriller Proud Mary by the way that lead actor Taraji P Henson,  coming off the back of her role in Hidden Figures, and her predominantly African American cast members are either over- or under-lit. This may seem like a negligible detail, but it’s a dismal sign that the makers of Proud Mary don’t know what to do with their terrific ensemble cast. Henson may be due for a Taken-style career boost (and Proud Mary may very well be it). But she deserves so much better than this.Proud Mary starts going downhill slowly during an opening credits sequence that hints at a fun time that director Babak Najafi (London Has Fallen), and the film’s three credited screenwriters almost never deliver. It’s a poorly paced attempt to introduce the film with a retro bent, with no-nonsense mobster assassin Mary (Henson) dressing up and arming herself before heading out to kill an anonymous mark. The Temptations’ Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone blares. But the mood is ruined by sloppy direction and an offbeat rhythm. You can’t help but feel like you’re watching a parody rather than a sincere tribute to female-led blaxploitation films like Foxy Brown, Cleopatra Jones or Coffy.Then the plot kicks in, and things get a lot worse before they get marginally better. Mary feels bad after she kills an anonymous guy, and makes an orphan out of his son Danny (Jahi Di’Allo Winston). A year later, Mary rescues Danny from a life of crime by taking out his cartoonishly evil drug dealer boss Uncle (Xander Berkeley). Unfortunately for Mary, Uncle was protected by the Russian mafia-esque rivals of her surrogate gangster dad Benny (Danny Glover). Mary wants to keep her involvement with Uncle’s death a secret from Benny, but his biological son Tom (How to Get Away with Murder’s Billy Brown) wants to go to war. And taking care of Danny is at least a part-time jobAs a result, a sizable chunk of Proud Mary is superficially concerned with Mary and Danny’s relationship. There are hints that these two under-developed characters share a special bond since neither she nor he takes themselves too seriously. She scolds him with tongue slightly in cheek while he gives as good as he gets before and after he tells her “You know I’m just messing with you, right?” Unfortunately, Najafi and his colleagues don’t develop this bitter-sweet melodramatic subplot very well. There are a handful of scenes that could have been, with a little more care and finesse, rather touching. But many of Proud Mary’s crucial emotional sequences, including their concluding pre-end credits scene, and their first heart-to-heart talk set at a windy Boston harbour, aren’t thoughtful enough to be moving. And unfortunately, while there’s nothing theoretically wrong with an over-abundance of cornball sentimentality, you have to be competent enough to sell that.Najafi and his colleagues’ biggest mistake was not putting the camera down long enough to highlight Henson, and her equally talented co-lead’s performances. Even Glover, a formerly great leading man who has delivered too many unworthy performances recently, is at his peak in two later scenes that, on paper, are almost rather good. Too bad it’s almost impossible to appreciate his performance during these darkly-lensed sequences. At one point, Glover stands directly in front of a window during harsh day-time sunlight. At this point, it becomes comically impossible to make out the expressions on Glover’s face.This creative decision would at least make sense if we weren’t supposed to know, in this moment, what Benny was feeling. But no, putting Glover in front of an over-exposed, naturally lit window just feels like a result of imaginative ineptitude since this sequence is one of the only ones that is paced well enough to be effectively moody. It robs Glover, and the film, of one of their only highlights.Henson is also rarely given the attention she deserves. Proud Mary only comes to life at its close, when its heroine finally gets to look like the badass that her justly adoring fanbase want her to be. She’s got enough sheer presence that she makes you believe she’s a real person no matter what she’s doing, everything from scolding Danny (Language!) to walking down a hallway and killing a bunch of anonymous eastern European bad guys. She even makes the film’s poorly choreographed climactic shoot-out look good just by strutting confidently down a couple of hallways, and looking ferocious when she pulls the trigger. — The GuardianDVDs courtesy: Saqr Entertainment Stores, Doha