Mother's Day (2023) Netflix Movie. Review: A Mamma-Spy Thriller... with a "Badass" Touch

Mother’s Day is directed by Mateusz Rakowicz and stars Agnieszka Grochowska, who is the best thing about the film.

We have sometimes branded Netflix’s Polish production as moralistic and somewhat conventional. Mother’s Day has rather little moralistic and is a highly entertaining “slapstick” movie, the kind we like.

Reasons to watch the movie: the action sequences, very funny with this girl “delivering” justice, kicks, and machetes.

Plot

Nina, a former NATO special operations agent living in hiding, must use all her deadly skills to rescue her son, who has been kidnapped by ruthless gangsters. Finding Maks is not only the opportunity to become part of the life of the son she had to abandon years ago, but also to feel again the rush of adrenaline that loaded her old lifestyle.

Movie Review

Low-life mafia, a rather bland plot and, technically, almost a B-movie with a sickly yellowish tone to it for the most part. A success? When we don’t have the budget to put on a James Cameron, we have to use our imagination, and Mother’s Day does it, with some phenomenal action sequences that know how to stand out with that heavy metal rhythm and some touches of very acid humor.

It’s not the best of its kind, it doesn’t invent the formula of a female super-spy fighting gangs, it doesn’t have the biggest budget in the world and the plot is rather put there because something has to be told between fights… However, It is an entertaining film that is aware that its virtues lie in the skills of certain sequences and that, in the absence of Guy Ritchie and his team around here, we must try to render the best possible product given the possibilities that are offered to us.

And it’s different in terms of photography, so b-series, lots of handheld camera, irony and even cruel jokes. It offers an unconventional treatment for good entertainment, not great, but enough to narrowly escape sinking as an action movie that, without Jessica Chastain, manages to get away. Although with no high score, it’s fun enough to spend a pleasant evening.

And then forget about it before you go to bed.

Our Opinion

It manages to save itself because of some details, knowing how to use its qualities, exploiting the most “badass” side of life and fleeing from existential philosophy at all times.