Bassam Tariq has turned away from a stalled Blade reboot to direct Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, a compact thriller set in Houston that centers on a morally complex assassin played by Mahershala Ali.
Ali’s character, Latif, is presented as a devout Muslim who moonlights as a vicious hitman. He views his killings as a form of divine retribution — meting out punishment to those he believes have offended God — and Tariq says that aspect of Latif’s psychology is central to the film’s moral architecture.
A recurring visual and thematic motif in the picture is Latif’s sword. Tariq, speaking recently in Toronto, said the weapon is not a wink to Ali’s earlier attachment to Marvel’s Blade but instead part of the character’s code. "You are forced to strike with intention when you use a sword," Tariq told reporters, arguing that the blade shapes Latif’s discipline and his negotiations with faith.
Tariq has been candid about the change of course that led to this film. After time attached to a Blade project that faltered, he opted to pursue a smaller, more intimate story. "I'm happier I made this movie," he said, framing the project as a creative pivot that allowed him to explore questions of belief, violence and culpability in a contemporary American setting.
The Houston backdrop figures into the film’s texture: Tariq uses the city’s neighborhoods and social context to ground Latif’s double life, rather than treating the location as mere scenery. That local specificity, combined with the moral seriousness of the script, shapes the film’s tone and the director’s approach to performance and visual design.
Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother marks a deliberate departure for Tariq from big-studio genre work toward a smaller-scale exploration of character and conscience. With Mahershala Ali inhabiting the role of Latif, the film foregrounds questions about faith, intention and the ethics of violence without relying on genre tropes tied to the director’s earlier, unrealized Marvel connection.