Movie Review: Mea Culpa
Mea Culpa is the latest crime film in Tyler Perry’s franchise written and directed by him. The film stars Kelly Rowland as the main protagonist, Trevante Rhodes, Nick Sagar, Sean Sagar, Shannon Thornton, Kerry O’Malley and Arianna Barron. The film was released on the 15th of February 2024.
Summary:
The film follows Mea (Kelly Rowland), who is a defense attorney living in New York. Mea is an ambitious and accomplished woman with no children but is focused on building a life for her and her husband Kal (Sean Sagar). One obstacle that Mea faces is that she cannot seem to win over the approval of her ‘dying’ mother in law Azalia (Kerry O’Malley), what also makes this situation particularly worse is that Kal is the classic ‘mother’s boy’, who would do anything for his mother, which in-turn makes things complicated for Mea. Now Kal has fallen on hard times ever since he was dismissed from his job for coming to work intoxicated and neither his brother Ray (Nick Sagar) or his mother know about his predicament. So Mea has had to keep this a secret. So at a dinner party for his Mother’s birthday Kal has had to sell the piano (a gift Kal had bought Mea earlier in their relationship) behind Mea’s back so as to appease his sick mother.
Mea is obviously unimpressed by this but she tries to put it aside so as to preserve the harmony between them. At this time there is a big Criminal case involving a famous painter by the name of Zayir (Trevante Rhodes). Zayir is being accused of murdering his spanish girlfriend. The city is portraying him as a modern day OJ Simpson, so like OJ he is searching for the best lawyer money can buy and then he looks no further than contacting Mea. Mea is apprehensive because of the fact that she feels guilty defending a man who would harm women, not only that but she genuinely does not believe he is innocent, furthermore Ray is part of the prosecution team that is trying to convict Zayir.
However Mea takes Zayir’s case documents home to review them. When Kal sees Mea looking at the court documents he reprimands Mea from looking at them as it is a conflict of interest between her and Kal’s brother Ray. Mea challenges Kal by stating that Kal’s actions have led him into the bad situation they are in, so in order to remedy it she is considering taking Zayir’s case. Not long after the family is having dinner with Kal’s mother. At the table Mea mentions that she may be representing Zayir, and Ray and Azalia tell her not to represent Zayir and out of spite Mea decides to represent him regardless of how they feel. Mea the Visits Zayir’s apartment o a few occasions to get answers and review the case. Mea even hires the help of a private investigator named Jimmy (RonReaco Lee).
To help her gain more information and insight into the case. There are people protesting against Zayir for his accusations however some organizations continue to support Zayir one being the gallery owner Renee (Angela Robinson). As the friction between Kal and Mae Increases the connection between Zayir grows and an affair begins between Mae and Zayir. Mae confides in her sister in law Charlise (Shannon Thorton) about everything including the affair and she keeps it a secret from her husband Ray, Kal and Azalia. Eventually they found out Mea was having an affair, Renee also discloses she too had an affair with Zion she goes on vacation to to find out Zayir was telling the truth and Mea shares this information with Ray. Who then invites Mea over to their mother’s house. Mea then receives an email exposing Azalia for not being sick and it turns out that Charlise was also having an affair with Zayir and that Ray and the mother had a sinister plan to kill both Charlise and Mea. A grandiose fight happens between the family and Mea escapes only to find Kal on his way to see Mea and the fam only for Mea to find out Kal was in on the plan too and Mea kills Kal in a fight which lead to a fatal car accident. Zayir gets acquitted and Mea walks away successful and drama free.
Critique:
This film was definitely not Tyler Perry’s best work. It had a strong start when we entered the life of Mea as a strong independent black woman with a disapproving mother in law with her marriage on the rocks. However the cliche’ trajectory of her developing feelings for a man who she was reprimanded from working with because of her dissatisfaction with her current situation was too predictable.
Tyler Perry does far too much pandering to his audiences, by casting Kelly Rowland who did a decent job for her role however pitting her against a white antagonist was too ‘on the nose’ as we as the black audiences are forced to root for her. The dialogue is lazily written in cheap attempts to be profound and seductive and the whole films comes off as a bad telenovela or soap opera. Perhaps if the film came out in the 1980’s maybe it would have more appreciation but the concept of realism captured in modern black cinema in shows like “Insecure”, make a film like this hard to appreciate.
Tyler Perry’s dependency on the visual appeal of the characters is what carries the show, Trevante Rhodes image and fashion sense is one of the highlights of the film as female audiences were salivating at the heartthrob he portrayed in the film. However his over the top methods of seducing women by making them ‘paint their feelings’ was too out-dated and so unimaginative. He tried to be the predictable caricature of a casanova and wound up falling flat. Trevante Rhodes is the impersonation of a cheesy pick up line. The sex-scenes were also quite hilarious and drawn from the imagination of a high-school essay where he and Kelly Rowland are making love on a paint canvas as a way of trying to merge the worlds of art and romance. Their bodies being covered in paint as they were being intimate stale and honestly unbelievable.
What’s hard to decide is what was more over the top, the acting or the script itself. The script had too many plot holes in so many instances they jumped the shark in ways that left little to the imagination. For example when Mea gets outed for cheating, how was it so convenient that she would end up at the EXACT hotel Zayir’s girl was working at? Simply poor writing.
Another thing is the characters have o true motive for their actions. For example, why does Ray have to go out of his way to get his wife back when he could have easily confronted and divorced Charlise for cheating? Was it worth putting his brother Kal’s marriage in harm’s way by risking Zayir cheating?
Also the mother being the sinister white woman with her evil mixed raced sos, vs the accomplished dark skinned black characters (Zayir and Mae) almost made it look like they used racism and colorism as a tool to draw audiences and make them invested in the character. There was no build up and honestly the film did not have to be this long. What makes this film so bad is how the film is so long but how the climax of the film is also so rushed and unrealistic the fight was honestly like the 70’s kung fu films where the characters had no build up and they just fought.
Overall this film was Tyler Perry insulting his black audience, with what seemed to be a telenovela mixed with a suspense film, possibly older audiences would have gravitated to this film but either way this film was a cheap regurgitated depiction of an investigation and chicanery gone wrong.
This film is easily 2/10
Shannon Nyajeka
