Haymaker II Review: In MARY MAGNUM: JIU-JITSU NUN, Indie Action Comedy With A Prayer
Mary Magnum: Jiu-Jitsu Nun enjoys its World Theatrical Premiere for the 2nd edition of the Haymaker Film Festival on Friday. The movie is also available to rent or purchase on Digital and VoD.
You’d have to watch at least twenty years of independent martial arts films to truly understand the heft of today’s current crop of creators in this particular arena. Director Jose Montesinos has amply affirmed his place here alongside the very community on which his career and creative stride is, in part, founded. And, you needn’t look further than his latest work, Mary Magnum: Jiu-Jitsu Nun to get a good glimpse of just what that community actively looks like.
On the other hand, if you’re new to Montesinos and his work, Mary Magnum: Jiu-Jitsu Nun proposes a suitable enough intro in case you’re in the market for indie action. The movie is also where you can spot a montage of some of those aforementioned works as part of the story’s backdrop, with an inventive ceremony of 90s action woven into its aesthetics. It culminates a vision shared by Montesinos and late creative partner, actor and martial arts star Dennis Ruel whose sudden passing last April became Montesinos’s biggest hurdle yet as their concept was still brewing.
Putting its best foot forward in steering that concept, Mary Magnum: Jiu-Jitsu Nun cues our lead character, Mary (Paula Rae Taylor), fresh in her habit as she treads with an impressionable air into a bar room full of unruly miscreants. Their intentions are anything but vague as they look to act on their lascivious instincts, only to watch as Mary whips her tunic and wimple off, revealing a completely different persona – one armed with a loaded revolver and the will to use it, along with God and a sick set of fighting skills on her side.
Mary’s prowess here sets the stage in Montesinos’s film which teeters between flashbacks of her previous life, as she journeys for the whereabouts of an unscrupulous politician named Vlad Russo (Robert Dill). Suspecting that Russo is using his platform as a front for a trafficking operation, Mary’s quest also incurs even more stakes as she seeks to resuce former lover, Vicky (Laura Lopez), from Russo’s clutches. With the help of longtime friend and Russo’s security insider, Johnny (Thomas Patrick Ryan Watson), it’s up to Mary to keep the faith as she presses on through waves of Russo’s masked goonsquad, no matter the danger that awaits.
Taylor, who also helped produce the film, lends a modest presentation in her noteworthy showcase as the film’s impassable force to be reckoned with, that is Mary. The film reveals and highlights plenty in her backstory and motivations to cohese things, constructing a protagonist firmly worth buttressing along the way. Lopez contributes excellently to these origins throughout as the film explores their romantic underpinning, and the evolution it takes.
Watson, a career stunt performer and double whose credits partly include shows like “Gotham Knights” and “Cobra Kai,” gets to showcase his acting chops in equal fashion as Johnny, the boyish, charismatic son of a late action star in pursuit of his own absolution. Chewing it up on screen with unabashed deragatory flair as the film’s villain is Dill, whose own beginnings go as far back as a member of the EMC Monkeys collective of yesteryear, and who has shown himself to be a versatile actor in the years since. Additionally, Mary Magnum: Jiu-Jitsu Nun is sure to walk its walk with stunt sequences and action by coordinator Jerry Quill and choreographer Alvin Hsing, who also make appearances in the film.
Montesinos treads boldly and with care in his steadfast direction, building on the strengths of its absurdity without turning it into a demeaning chore. Some directors forget the importance of that, and in the case of this film, it complements Montesinos’s signature tribute to heyday action heroics and spectacle, with a touch of subversion.
Arguably, there are some areas where Mary Magnum: Jiu-Jitsu Nun falls short of expectations, but those are more due to the usual constraints of indie film, including but not limited to untapped conceptual potential. I’m also keen to believe this is due, at least in part, to a year that took a lot away from what this film could have been.
Combined with the kind of uneasy ground independent filmmakers operate on a lot of times, and you can imagine how extraordinary the circumstances might be. For all this and more, Mary Magnum: Jiu-Jitsu Nun serves as a tributary action thriller worth your wallet, and to fans on the genre both sides of the lens, a promise made, and effectively kept.
Native New Yorker. Been writing for a long time now, and I enjoy what I do. Be nice to me!
