Taraji P. Henson does her best to breathe life into this generic actioner.

| Mar 10, 2020

Make no mistake: [Tarji P.] Henson's not the failure. The film failed her.

| Mar 16, 2018

"Proud Mary" isn't a retro action thriller at all, but a staid family drama, and an incredibly boring one at that.

| Jan 25, 2018

Kudos, though, to [Taraji P] Henson, who's mesmerizing to behold even in this drearily predictable bit of throwback blowback.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Jan 18, 2018

Where the movie falls and can't get up is in the dialogue, the camerawork, and the editing.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jan 18, 2018

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.

| Jan 16, 2018

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.

| Jan 16, 2018

This dipshit drivel guns down Taraji P. Henson's bid for action-hero glory - and it should be ashamed of itself for wasting such talent.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jan 14, 2018

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.

| Original Score: C- | Jan 13, 2018

Babak Najafi's Proud Mary is a so-so action melodrama with an insulting whiff of generic blaxploitation stylistics.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jan 13, 2018

"Proud Mary" is a flawed shoot-em-up whose heart may be in the right place, but its head is nursing a gaping wound.

| Original Score: C- | Jan 13, 2018

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.

| Jan 13, 2018

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.

| Jan 12, 2018

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.

| Original Score: D+ | Jan 12, 2018

They got the right star for sure, but they haven't given her a proper vehicle.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 12, 2018

Henson clearly has the swagger, charm, and ferocity to make one hell of an action star. She deserves a movie that does her talents justice.

| Original Score: C+ | Jan 12, 2018

Better than its early January release date would suggest.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Jan 12, 2018

But the mood is ruined by sloppy direction and an offbeat rhythm. You can't help but feel like you're watching a parody rather than a sincere tribute to female-led blaxploitation films like Foxy Brown, Cleopatra Jones or Coffy.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 12, 2018

"Proud Mary" doesn't deserve the lack of faith its studio has in it. In fact, it's almost good, so close to success that its flaws truly become frustrating.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 12, 2018

Ostensibly about a hired killer (the Halloween wigs and running-in-stilettos kind) who decides to reclaim her femininity, the picture is sunk by its all-male writing and directing team's narrow conception of womanhood as lipstick and maternal instincts.

| Jan 12, 2018