From its kickin’ soundtrack to its intentionally retro cinematography, Proud Mary is clearly an homage to the action-packed B-movies of the ’70s. The fabulously versatile Taraji P. Henson stars because the titular character on the coronary heart of this 90-minute vignette. Although she is a reasonably badass murderer, Mary has a jarring change of coronary heart when she stumbles upon Danny (Jahi Di’Allo Winston), the younger son of certainly one of her targets—he’s oblivious as to what occurred to his father, since he had his headphones on in one other room. Fast-forward to a 12 months later: Danny is on the streets, slinging dope for the ruthless kingpin Uncle (Xander Berkeley). Unbeknownst to him, Mary has been watching him ever since—which turns out to be useful when Danny passes out in an alleyway.

Mary takes Danny in, retaining him in her swanky, mod, blood-money-funded condominium. Overcome with guilt from seeing the results of avenue life on her new ward, Mary pays Uncle a go to that ends together with her killing him in chilly blood—which triggers an ever-escalating chain of risky occasions for Boston’s organized-crime scene.

It is a real pleasure to observe Henson flex her action-heroine muscle tissue on this function, and the bond between Henson and Winston is touching. However, the film is finally undone by its lackluster script: Although Mary has numerous potential as a personality, her transformation from cold-blooded contract killer to emotionally delicate mom determine inside a matter of days is eyebrow-raising. Sure, believability wasn’t actually an essential issue within the pulpy exploitation flicks that Proud Mary hopes to emulate, however the movie by no means actually finds its footing. The consequence? A disjointed film with an id disaster. Between the stable appearing and the artistic camerawork—and another shout-out to the soundtrack—there may be numerous fascinating potential in Proud Mary, however sloppy modifying and writing forestall it from actually touchdown.