Proud Mary
This is the first film of the year that I just got out from seeing. And i am happy to report that it might be one of the more important ones.
Proud Mary is an action pack drama staring Empire’s Taraji Henson as a hard hitting yet compassionate assassin looking to gain redemption via an orphan whom she feels responsible for and a connection with. This setup is kinda riddled with tired movie tropes and clumsy writting but has enough good acting and tough but fair moments to pull it through. The child actor is excellent in his roll and keeps mary on her toes throughout the film. As for the antagonist of this film it seems to be half in the people try to keep mary down and half mary her self for the bad decisions she makes at critical moments. I glad to see danny glover back in action and hope its not a one off. The love interest or….excuse me the ex love interest kinda felt outta place at times and rubbed me the wrong way. This is not to say i did not enjoy the acting because the part he played no matter how unnecessary, he played it well. The title character mary harken back to the bad assery of foxy brown but i felt this character was well more grounded.
One of the biggest gripes i have about this film is not really about the film it self….. This honor goes to sony. The promotion of this film was almost non existant and I have to make a shout out to my facebook friends for turning me on to it. The lack of promotion in it self seem to hurt what i believe would have be a pretty decent opening for this beginning of the year action flick, but i can see it being over shadowed by the more know commuter and the ongoing trails of the last jedi and jumanji. Though this is already happenging lets not continue the trend. One of the biggest things I noticed from my fellow viewers at the theather was the overwhelming support from the black community… let keep this a thing, lets let hollywood know we want more black lead films. Cause the sad part is i saw a lot of kids at this R rated action drama. And its sad not cause of adults letting their kids watch R rated movies but because we have to out of deperation for them to see strong black characters in our media. Hopefully this can continue with the up coming black panter and start a snow ball effect of good diverse movies.
If you havent seen the film go out and give it a chance. Its not the best film but it is an action packed movie with a lot of heart and charming moments.