‘Mother’s Day’ falls well short of being a compelling outing

'Mother's Day', the Polish Netflix film, is about a mother who is out to save her son. The climax paradoxically is an anticlimax.

Hyderabad: Just the other day, Netflix came out with its film, the Mother, where a mother with a past goes to lengths to save her only daughter. This time around, it is about a mother who is out to save her son.

Trying to cater to the needs of a global audience, Netflix is just unleashing movie after movie. The over-the-top platform is sticking to its genre literally.

---

‘Mother’s Day’ revolves around Nina (Agnieszka Grochowska), also known as Kikimora, an ex-NATO Special Operations agent. Predictably, she has a back story and gave up her son at birth to save him. Nina’s son is kidnapped, and Nina seeks Igor’s (Dariusz Chojnacki) help in rescuing her son. Igor has issues with his daughter back home and behaves erratic at times.

Parallelly, there is a diplomatic issue with Russia where the Ambassador is using diplomatic immunity to launder money. Will Nina be successful in saving her son, who is it from her past who is out to get her and why, how do the parallel lines conjoin is what the remainder of the film is about.

One major drawback to this 94-minute non-starter is the predictability. Though Agnieszka Grochowska tries her best to carry the film on her shoulders, she is let down by a lackluster script. The action sequences are juvenile at best.

They remind a lot about yester year B grade movies where the protagonist always gains the upper hand in spite of the bulk of the antagonist. I have seen Jackie Chan do better action sequences with less than half the props that the actors have here.

‘Mother’s Day’ falls well short of being a compelling outing. Director Mateusz Rakowicz seems to lose the plot. He receives no help from his co-writer Lukasz M. Mackiejewski. No emphasis is laid on developing the mother-son relationship. In one scene the son is abusing the mother not knowing that Nina is the mother and in another scene he wants her to be safe. It is the insipid narration that is the huge let down of the movie. The climax paradoxically is an anticlimax.