It seems that Tyler Perry’s latest self-branded feature “Mea Culpa” wants to be a number of things including a legal thriller, an erotic thriller, and a psychological thriller. The problem is there’s not a thrill of any kind to be found in this astonishingly bad, completely hollow, and downright trashy straight-to-streaming debacle. In fact, it’s only the unintentional laughs (and there are MANY of them) that make the film the slightest bit bearable.
Produced, written, and directed by Perry, “Mea Culpa” is the kind of movie that will find an audience just by being plastered all over the Netflix homepage. And to be fair, a lot of people will watch it just because Perry’s name is attached. But that doesn’t excuse the kind of shoddy quality that we get in “Mea Culpa”. While Perry’s direction is nothing to write home about, the real culprit is his writing from the utterly absurd storyline, to the incredibly shallow characters, to the laughably bad dialogue.
Kelly Rowland is given the unenviable task of playing Mea Harper, a defense attorney whose marriage is on the rocks. Her husband Kal (Sean Sagar) lost his job as an anesthesiologist for showing up to work wasted. Even worse, he may have cheated on Mea. To complicate matters even further, Kal has an unhealthy attachment to his domineering and dying mother, Azalia (Kerry O’Malley) – a baffling addition to the story that plays out about as poorly as possibly.
While at her law firm, Mea is approached by an edgy contemporary artist named Zyair Malloy (a bone-dry and lifeless Trevante Rhodes). He’s suspected of killing his girlfriend and is set to be prosecuted by the District Attorney. The police have gobs of evidence against him yet Zyair claims his innocence. He wants Mea to defend him in court and after lengthy consideration she agrees. After all, with her husband not working they need the money.
There’s only one problem with Mea taking the high-profile case – the District Attorney is her brother-in-law, Ray (Nick Sagar) who has aspirations of running for mayor and plans on using a conviction of Zyair as part of his campaign. Obvious family conflicts ensue, most of which begin sending the story in a new direction that happens to be as predictable as it is implausible.
To avoid the paparazzi (and to provide a convenient reason for them to be alone), Mea begins meeting in Zyair’s loft to discuss the case. But to no one’s surprise the legal talk quickly takes a back seat to seduction. Despite there not being an ounce of notable chemistry between Rowland and Rhodes, the insipid sexual deviant Zyair begins wooing the supposedly sharp and intelligent Mea.
And that gets to one of the film’s biggest problems. Everything that plays out makes the allegedly ‘strong female lead’ as dumb as a box of rocks. The terrible choices she makes, her inability to see the obvious, her overall lack of good instincts and judgement – Mea gets shockingly dumber as the story progresses which I’m guessing wasn’t what Perry was going for. Yet the material is so bad leaving Rowland in a no-win situation. There’s simply nothing she can do to make us believe in the Mea that Perry wants.
None of the supporting cast or characters fare any better (and I do mean NONE). I mentioned the deflated Rhodes who can’t muster a spark of energy or charisma. Everyone else is cranked up too high – the overly oblivious Kal, the overly ruthless Azalia, the overly haughty Ray. And then there’s Mea’s friend, Jimmy (RonReaco Lee), one of the worse private investigators you’ll find in a movie. But again, the cast can only do so much with such a dreadful script. And Perry’s direction routinely puts them in positions that no amount of good acting could overcome. “Mea Culpa” is now streaming on Netflix.
VERDICT – 1 STAR
Keith & the Movies 