Mary (Taraji P. Henson) is a hit woman working for an organized crime family in Boston, whose life is completely turned around when she meets a young boy whose path she crosses when a professional hit goes bad.
Henson's both-feet-on-the-ground performance tries to rein in the chaos, but the simple fact is that she-and the moviegoers, many of them people of color, who will come out to see this film-deserve much better support behind the camera.
It's a good thing that [the] characters genuinely care about each other, because Proud Mary sure doesn't, and most of the people watching it won't either.
Proud Mary is still worth watching for two reasons. One: Winston is a talented actor, one worth keeping your eye on, and the chemistry between him and Henson as a mother figure is genuinely affecting. And two: Henson is just the greatest.
Ms. Henson, ever simmering, takes Mary's moral conundrum very seriously. Her expressive eyes and nuanced body language work well for the character; she can put across a major change in attitude just by shifting a hip.
You'd think a movie called Proud Mary would be sonically sensational, but the busy score is so ineffectual that it might as well be coming from the next multiplex screen over.
It's too aggressively mediocre for all that, and Henson, for her many merits otherwise, is encouraged to deliver a middling performance in kind. The movie knows what makes her worth watching. It simply doesn't know how to make itself equally worthy.
