Bad Mother

A suburban mom’s descent into the criminal underworld makes for a bloody yet oddly flat action-satire from Faust (Peepland). April, a middle-aged mother of two, lives a strained life dealing with a sassy teen daughter, her younger son (who’s off to camp for the first time), PTA meetings, and loads of laundry. But when her daughter is kidnapped by henchmen of Ava, the queen of the local drug trade, April’s motherly instincts turn out to be the only thing that might be able to save the day. It’s hard not to love April, who manages to build a bomb with household cleaners and a discarded action figure, but the cast beyond her is thinly drawn. Ava is especially stereotyped: the tension between her stylish, spin-class-attendee facade and illegal activities intrigues, but goes nowhere except some peeks up her skirt. Deodato’s jaggedly inked visuals lend a satisfying grit to the suburban setting, and he gives April a solid realism, but recalling his 1990s Wonder Woman R-rated pinup, he slides in opportunities to pulp things up, rendering catty moms shopping for produce in a bikini top and miniskirt, for example. At its worst, the characters are reduced to shabby noir cliches, as when Ava derides April’s life for being like a “Lifetime movie of the week,” whereas she prefers “R-rated content.” This satirical comic sparks off with an attention-grabbing premise but, unfortunately, just fizzles. (Feb.)