Proud Mary

"Proud Mary" (R, 1:29) is an action thriller with a mainly African-American cast. Golden Globe winner and Oscar nominee Taraji P. Henson stars in the title role as a hit-woman with a hardened heart of gold.

When she carries out orders to take out a man who was heavily indebted to her small but powerful Boston crime family, she learns that he had a tween son who is now an orphan. She spends the next year secretly following Danny (Jahi Di'Allo Winston) around town as he lives on the streets and works for an abusive local drug dealer (Xander Berkeley). At an especially vulnerable moment for Danny, Mary steps in and struggles to break through his defenses to help him and become his protector. But she also inadvertently drags him into a brewing gang war between her family (headed by Danny Glover and Billy Brown) and a group of eastern European criminals (headed by Rade Serbedzija, perhaps best known as the villain in "Taken 2").

This genre movie is fairly formulaic, with little to distinguish it from similar films, but it's also fairly well-done and fans of the genre (and/or the very accomplished cast) will probably find it entertaining. "B-"

Not a fan, the story was all over the place and unbelievable. I love Henson as an actor, but this movie is better left for cable and not worth the price of a movie ticket.

Pretty lame movie. An assassin with a heart of gold? Meh. The only good scene in this is the assault set to Tina Turner's "Proud Mary". They must have pulled most of that scene for the trailer that peeked my interest in his film in the first place. And the music is another bright spot! Other than that, yeesh.

Here's what's good about this movie:

• Taraji Henson
• the marketing
• the premise
• unfortunately, that's it

The writing and the directing are just so passionless. Everything is bland and empty. I sincerely think its creators should be screened and treated for depression, because they clearly have nothing in their lives that brings them joy. It feels like they have been trying to leave the industry but were contractually obligated to make five more films before they did, and this was the fourth.

Watching this film, you will get the distinct impression that they never smiled a single time during its making. And neither will you during its watching.

I mean, it's not the best thing ever, but have you seen the state of action movies today? This is above average in many ways.

A little abbreviated, like the studio messed with it, cut out something and there was nothing left to pad it out. I mean, was Neal McDonough really in it for 30 seconds? Seems like he wouldn't show up but for real work so there's a whole extra movie in there we didn't get to see.

Some weird editing. Two conversations were filmed as over the shoulder from each POV and flipped for each character, sometimes every few seconds!

But overall above average for the action, verging on Very Good for the main dramatic tension. Not least because they do NOT over explain. Who is the main character, really? Who cares! It works.

So, 1 and 2 and 3 star ratings, with minimal reviews? This seems like it was a campaign of hate instead. It's not remotely deserving of such a low rating, at all.

I saw no other political issues, so... racist? Not sure, but it's not that bad at all.