‘Mea Culpa’ (2024) Netflix Movie Review - Tyler Perry’s Impotent Thriller

It's hard to get angry at or upset about a film that knows it's terrible. Tyler Perry's Mea Culpa sets its sights so low that it merely sees sex organs and junk. Including a plot summary in this review is futile because there is no plot in the film. The so-called events are, at first, used as an excuse to give rise to a sex scene between Mea (Kelly Rowland) and Zyair (Trevante Rhodes). She is a lawyer, while he is accused of murder. It's a match made in (porny) heaven. Their soft-core copulation is accompanied by cheesy music that says, "Unravel me." Do you need further proof that you have entered a trashy territory?

Mea's personal life is not exactly a paradise. She and her husband, Kal (Sean Sagar), attend a therapy session where the former expresses how jealous she feels about the latter's friendship with a woman named Jenna (Arianna Barron). Kal defends himself, saying there is nothing between them, and that Mea has no reason to be jealous. Notice how the camera observes Kal kissing Mea's head before he leaves therapy for his mother's birthday party. The shot acts as proof that this man is telling the truth about not having an affair with another lady.

But the movie pushes Mea towards bad, erotic decisions through scenes like the one where Kal and Jenna play a video game. Then, there is that picture that finally throws Mea in the arms of Zyair. So far, so meh. Firstly, there is no seductive charge or presence of sexual tension in the scenes where Mea is seduced by Zyair. Rhodes delivers his lines robotically. He talks about carnal desires in a way that suggests he is discussing what he ate last night. This indifference towards setting up a mood leads you to believe that Perry just wants to make a soft-core porn film. His target audience is horny teenagers who are bored with browsing adult websites.

But then, Perry makes Mea Culpa ridiculous by throwing in a stupid twist. He suddenly realizes he wants to be clever by pulling the rug from beneath our feet. Perry, the porn director, now becomes Perry, the thriller director. He is as good at generating suspense as he is at titillating the audience. Meaning: He has a talent for neither of these things. So, we end up laughing at everything and hope at least the actors must have had, ahem, a good time.

If I had to sum up Perry's intentions, I would pick that visual from this film where a woman shows her middle finger to protestors screaming outside her office. The director, like this character, arrogantly displays his middle finger to the people who will find problems in this film. Perry doesn't care about criticisms. The joke is on critics like me who will review a movie like this.

Final Score- [3/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times