Review: Proud Mary

Image courtesy of Screen Gems.

"Proud Mary" has its moments and Taraji P. Henson provides evidence here that she is leading lady material, but the actress also deserves a better showcase for her talents. The picture is an occasionally amusing, but overly familiar batch of cliches in a story about a criminal hoping to go on the straight and narrow. In most films of this sort, the protagonist aims to change their ways as the result of a love interest - in this case, it's a kid.

Rather than wasting any time with back story - that comes later - the picture jumps right in with the titular character, a top figure in and assassin for a Boston-based crime syndicate (although we never quite figure out the line of business here - drugs maybe?), killing a man in his kitchen and then having a crisis of conscience after noticing a young boy playing video games in another room.

One year later, Mary is following the boy, Danny (Jahi Di Allo Winston), around and keeping an eye on him. As it turns out, he is working for her syndicate's rival crime organization - which is run by Russians - and being abused by a nasty boss. Mary steps in, whacks the boss, saves the boy and takes him in. He, of course, is unaware that Mary is responsible for his being an orphan.

Much of the picture follows the increasing tension between the two crime factions - Mary's is led by a steely Danny Glover - as well as her trying to keep the secret that her killing of the young boy's boss is what set off the tension in the first place. It also doesn't help that Mary's former lover, Tom (Billy Brown), who is also Glover's son, is nosing around and doesn't appear to be pleased that Mary is sheltering the kid.

Typically, my complaint with most American action films is that they are loaded with nonstop violence and provide little in the way of characterization. In other words, it's difficult to care what is taking place because the people at the center of such movies are lacking in personality. "Proud Mary" has the opposite problem. Its action scenes are skillfully handled - albeit relying on cliches of the genre and often a little preposterous - but the scenes in which characters talk to one another do little to make the story more interesting.

Henson is a fine actress with great screen presence, but the story surrounding her character is like nearly every other story of a killer attempting to quit a life of crime. The back stories of her involvement with Glover's crime boss and Tom are too vague to be compelling and the scenes with Danny mostly involve her snapping at the kid to watch his mouth and mind his manners.

From the film's opening titles to the use of classic tunes by The Temptations and Ike and Tina Turner (guess which one), "Proud Mary" aims to capture the aura of blaxploitation crime dramas from the 1970s. But those films - at least some of the better ones, such as the Pam Grier pictures that this one appears to emulate - were grittier and frequently offered a layer of subtext that is missing here. "Proud Mary" may keep on turnin', but I doubt it will have you rollin' on the river.