Mea Culpa

This movie is dull and put on. It has the feel of a Lifetime movie but less interesting. Kelly Rowland plays a supposed tough Chicago lawyer but her character doesn't translate the grit or depth that a tough lawyer character should have. She has only one note and an expressionless face. The only expression that helps her is when she smiles which she should play more roles that would allow that. And the lead actor.... Ug! He's terrible! He can't deliver a line to save his life! He doesn't come off like an artist at all, he comes off like a professional athlete attempting to deliver a line like a cheesy commercial. I lost interest way early on. The characters are all dimensionless, vapid and predictable. The story could have been better with the right actors and director but this one is awful. I'm going to try and finish it but I'm not interested enough to do so.

I don't even know where to begin with this one. Right off the bat, the dialogue is ridiculous. Like, comically ridiculous. Within the first 15 minutes, I had to double check that this wasn't supposed to be a parody of thrillers. Like, how could someone write this and not intend it to be satirical? There's an evil mother in law that's so over the top, I'm convinced the writers just went to ChatGPT and asked it to write stereotypes. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if this entire script was AI-generated.

The movie is worsened by unnecessary sex scenes and bad acting. Is it supposed to be an erotic thriller or a murder mystery? Pick one and do it well, don't try to do both and fail. The romantic male lead is such a bad actor, I was laughing at some of his line deliveries. Honestly the best thing about this movie was the mystery element, which was painfully predictable and trite. I gave it a two cause I guess it could be worse?

Tyler Perry's always been very short on subtlety with his directing/writing to me. He continues to grow as a filmmaker but in small steps rather than leaps and bounds. With his most recent effort, he still shows the bad habit of writing paper thin characters and rather perplexing plotlines. The plot twist can be felt coming for some because of this fact. The direction is so-so, as he lets some scenes go on for too long and spends an excess of screentime attempting to build anxiousness with viewers with time that could be used in a more effective manner to build depth on both character and narrative. The acting is solid from all players, though there's no particularly strong chemistry between any. Production value decent as well, everyone looks good, the film is shot well, decent score to build tension for some scenes. Overall, it's not a film of zero charm but doesn't have enough in freshness, style or accomplishment to make it recommended viewing.

I am truly beginning to believe that Tyler Perry understands that his achievements and ability to employ so many black actors/actresses and workers has struck such a cord of respect from Black America, that he knows that he'll never be cut off from us and continues to shovel out this crap. I am disheartened for Miss Kelly Rowland who deserved better than this and I am saddened to have to be so negative.

This movie is full of the typical TP (Tyler Perry) tropes and overly written caricatures. He is such a poor writer and it continues to be seen in the poor quality of repugnant caricatures he creates. He doesn't know how to allow characters to be victimized without having to overly exaggerate the scenarios and people surrounding them for it to be possible.

Mea (Kelly Rowland) is supposed to be high profile lawyer who is very good at what she does, yet we get nothing to build her as such. She spends most of her screen time being a skulking, moody shell of a woman who, for a lawyer, seems to leave her brain at home every time she crosses the doorway. We get no peek at her being a great lawyer, a wife or a friend. Everything just begins happening and her reactions to the unfolding of her life are always confusing and just plain DUMB!

The cast of caricatures around her are as flat as a dollar bill. Zyair (Trevante Rhodes) is literally just in the movie to look sexy and talk slow. His character has no substance. Mea's husband (Sean Sagar) is flat and as usual, written to be so extremely uninvolved and weak that you can't like or dislike anything about him. The brother in law and Mother in law are extremely exaggerated as being insufferable (in order to make Mea look like a complete victim), but you get no reference as to why their relationship is like this or why they do what they do.

This movie was supposed to be an erotic thriller and this seems to be the area where TP really put all of his energy (go figure). The interactions between Mea and Zyair are supposed to be sexy and seductive however, no seductive or alluring nature is given from Zyair that would make any married woman want to compromise her entire marriage for. Instead both individuals come off as dumb and just looking for excuses to have unwarranted and immoral sex. And the "excuses" (because that's what they are) that are mapped out via the plot are weak and watery at best. I also don't feel Mea's character showed enough interest to suddenly shift gears so suddenly the way she did. TP tried to make her this strong, unflinching woman who wasn't going to give in, so we never really saw her interested. (This is a miss both in the writing and the acting... Sorry Kelly.)

For Background, the set design and environments are getting better than his movies of the past. But again, we are introduced to the TP prototypes: every actor/actress is stunning and in great shape. The homes they live in, cars they drive and clothes they wear are a stretch compared to their work or the financial situations they are supposed to be in and this all takes away from being able to take the movie seriously rather than seeing it as another TP stage play.

Overall, the plot is predictable and full of tropes and holes. The writing is terribly poor and underwhelming. The characters are flat and snooze worthy. The acting is sub-par at best (a step above daytime soap operas) With the exception of Ronreaco Lee who plays Jimmy the PI. Ronreaco was a save in this film. You can tell he's a seasoned actor and he brought what little light to this film there was to be had. The ending offered nothing new or intriguing and TP needs to be stopped. But hey, at least we didn't get bad wigs eh?

I don't know what netflix were thinking with getting the rights to this. Waste of money for them and for Tyler Perry to. This movie has no substance really and for most of it's two hour running time it's boring. Kelly Roland is a singer that's joint the acting clan and she shouldn't have. She plays mea here, a defense attorney that's hired by a guy that was accused of killing his girlfriend. As you can guess they fall for one another and yada yada yada. I think the acting was pretty bad and the script might have been written by someone that can't. Overall the made for TV thrillers are better than this movie it was sad really because it could have had potential and the sex scenes were just awkward to watch.