The Mother: Jennifer Lopez in an action thriller

The Mother, directed by Niki Caro, puts Jennifer Lopez in action as a trained killer whose perspective changes when she becomes a mother. Her role is so thoroughly that of a mother that she doesn’t even have a character name. She’s simply Mother.

The Mother begins with a brief explanation of what’s happening. A woman (Jennifer Lopez) is telling the FBI everything she knows about two very bad guys. She’s former military with an impressive record as a sniper. She keeps telling the man questioning her, Cruise (Omari Hardwick), that they aren’t safe where they are. The FBI guys disregard her, right up until they are attacked by the bad guys.

Adrian (Joseph Fiennes) is quite upset with her for ruining his money making schemes and turning him in to the Feds. In a shoot out at the FBI safe house, Adrian stabs Mother in her pregnant belly. She sets him on fire.

The baby lives and is adopted by a good family. Mother goes into hiding in Alaska where a former comrade-in-arms, Jons (Paul Raci), watches her back. Mother’s always on the alert for danger and waits every year for a report from Cruise about how Zoe (Lucy Paez) is doing with her adoptive family. When the little girl is turning 12 the bad guys figure out where she is. Mother hears from Cruise that there is trouble. She swings into action.

From that opening, it’s nonstop action. Mother is a one woman army, killing the bad guys left and right. She rescues Zoe from them more than once. They go to ground in Alaska where Zoe learns how to shoot and survive in case she needs to fight.

And, of course, there’s more fighting. Snowmobile chase scenes, sniper action, compounds being attacked. Adrian, with half of his face plastered with burn scars, really wants to get even with Mother. Zoe is his way to do it.

Jennifer Lopez plays this one as a stoic, careful woman. Jennifer Lopez can do just about anything, but I always enjoy her in the hard, tough, ass kicking roles.

Zoe is clever herself and quickly decides the woman who comes to rescue her but doesn’t have much to say is her birth mom. She also realizes that Mother and Jons are speaking in some sort of code – like spies – as Mother buys provisions in Jons’ little store.

The pacing was very good with no lulls in the action. In case you haven’t seen the trailer for this one yet, it’s on YouTube. The film is in theaters right now, and also streaming on Netflix.