Fast cars, big guns, and Taraji P. Henson “dressed in all black like The Omen” taking a bottle of Hennessy to the face as a paid gun. . . TAKE MY MONEY NOW! Set to the tune of “Proud Mary” by Tina Turner, the trailer for the film, also named Proud Mary, is a barrage of scenes of Taraji as a lone assassin kicking ass and looking unbothered.
Directed by Babak Najafi, the film follows Mary, an assassin for an organized crime family in Boston, whose life gets twist-turned upside down when she crosses paths with a young boy during a hit-gone-wrong. Henson’s co-stars include zaddy Billy Brown (How to Get Away With Murder), Jahi Di’Allo Winston (young Ralph Tresvant in BET’s The New Edition Story), and throwback The Color Purple stars Margaret Avery (totally incomparable) and Danny Glover. . . not to mention a huge shout out to the blaxploitation-era and #OGKickAssBlackGirl Pam Grier as Foxy Brown with the film’s font.
At this point, you cannot tell me that the P in Taraji P. Henson, does not stand for “Please-don’t-think-I’m-pulling-my-foot-off-of-Hollywood’s-neck”. I legiterally was just complaining about never seeing black girls or black women in action films with significant roles to the storyline. But I mean, if you need a sassyass receptionist or like a comic-relief sidekick to a quirky, non-black girl– we gotchu! Insert extreme eyeroll. I digress. Hollywood has had a huge problem with representation circa forever, and the problem transcends almost every genre. But this here is a win. Representation really does matter.
And once again, Taraji P. Henson proves she is still out here not playing any games.
Proud Mary will be in theaters January 2018.
Photo Credit: Proud Mary (via Sony Pictures)
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