Mother’s Day (Netflix, 2023)
Mother’s Day (original title: Dzien Matki) is the dirty Polish equivalent of the recent Netflix-hit The Mother.
If you enjoyed Jennifer Lopez kickin butt and saving her daughter, then you may enjoy this one as well.
But be warned: it’s a lot more down and dirty than the glossy Lopez-movie, so it’s probably for the best that Netflix waited til after the actual Mother’s Day to release Dzien Matki.
Still, it shares the same concept, offering proof that Netflix really wants to make similar themed movies in different territories.
Mother’s Day is about former Special Ops agent Nina Novak, who supposedly died in 2005 and who has to come out of hiding to save her now 17-year old son, Max, from the criminals who kidnapped him.
Nina only knows Max from afar, watching him from her car while he celebrates his birthday with his foster parents, or secretly following him on Facebook.
But when his life is in danger her motherly instincts take over and she uses all her lethal skills - and she has a lot of those - to save the day.
The bad guys are completely mental, and this combined with the low budget feel of the movie, makes it clear that writer Lukasz M. Maciejewski and writer-director Mateusz Rakowicz are aiming for a modern day grindhouse experience.
Star of the movie is Agnieszka Grochowska, who is very convincing as the desperate but all the more powerful Nina. By itself, Grochowska’s lived-in performance is a good enough reason to watch the movie.
Apart from the obvious thematic comparison to The Mother, I think that Mother’s Day has actually more in common with last year’s Italian revenge movie My Name is Vendetta or even the recent French movie AKA, which was very successful for Netflix.
The movie has a fair share of gruesome scenes, including one particularly nasty electrocution scene, so Mother’s Day is not for the faint of heart.
But if you’re into this kind of gory action drama thriller it is definitely worth your time.