Acrimony and A Fall from Grace were the two films that earned Tyler Perry a high level of respect from me for his craftmanship with his films. "This man sure knows how to tell a story and deliver astounding films." I would usually say when I finish any of his films. And so my first thought about this new film, Mea Culpa, was that it had to be a good film too since I saw it was by the same Tyler Perry.
From what I remember, some of the previous works by Tyler Perry stirred up a lot of buzz amongst their viewers. There were often discussions and arguments about things like "Who's at fault?" A similar thing is what we have here again in this film.
It's not just about the controversies that Tyler manages to stir up with his works, but also about his brilliance and how well-written his stories are. At the very least, they are entertaining.
A criminal defence attorney takes on the case of a seductive artist accused of murdering his girlfriend, but when burning desire takes hold, things get hot and dangerous. [Google]
Let's start with the storyline. The first scene thrusts us into the insides of the dysfunctional home of the main character. Right away, I had a sense of something that was going to happen—something around betrayal. It's something that's common in some of the writer's works. I didn't exactly like that because I felt like I was going down familiar terrain in the same manner again.
I thought to cut the film some slack, though. But there was something off about the dialogue in the first scene. It didn't feel fluid. It was a tad bit unnatural and felt tense. I thought it was me that didn't get why, but it didn't stop there.
Right off the bat, I'll say that I stopped enjoying the film about halfway in. I lost sense of where the film was going.
Build-up is very important, and that's what I thought the film was doing for most of the beginning, but it turned out to be slow-paced for unjustifiable reasons.
You see, what I was looking for deep within me was some court action. That's the angle I hoped the film would take. Heated trials. Dumbfounding facts. Wild plot twists. I didn't feel satisfied in that direction.
After going in halfway, I still wasn't feeling engrossed in what I was watching. And when the entire film was going to end, I couldn't believe that I had just watched a film by Tyler Perry. It was all bland.
I'll hand it to them for doing well with the quality of the visuals in the film. I appreciate just how well suited the camera angles were most of the time. There were even some first-person angles. That's something that gives the film a little more of a score.
As for the acting, I don't have much to say concerning it, as it wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Well, except for the fact that most of the dialogue felt forced. They were just there for me.
I am not sure how this could have happened, considering that there aren't that many films from Tyler Perry Studios these days. When I think of the fact that it's a Netflix film, I can imagine that there may have been constraints to Tyler's writing for the film...because it felt like a "let's just give them one more thing to watch" film.
Mea Culpa does pass for a film to pass time with. It's definitely not something I would choose to watch again and again, like I did with Acrimony and A Fall from Grace, or even any of the Madea films. Those ones were true classics. Mea Culpa was without depth and novelty. 5/10 rating.
All images are screenshots from the film