Summary

Mea Culpa is a poorly written and predictable Tyler Perry film starring Kelly Rowland and Trevante Rhodes.
Despite starting as an interesting examination of a struggling marriage, the movie takes a turn for the worse with excessive drama.
The direction is lacking in artistic representation, with distracting dialogue and unrealistic character actions.

The latest film from Tyler Perry Studios is on brand and exactly what you’d expect it to be. Written, directed, and produced by Tyler Perry, Mea Culpa is overly dramatic, poorly written, and predictable. The film stars Kelly Rowland as Mea Harper. She’s a criminal defense attorney whose latest case involves esteemed artist Zyair Malloy (Trevante Rhodes) and his deceased girlfriend Hydie (María Gabriela González). In pursuit of the truth, Mea confronts her client’s deceptive nature and her increasing lust for him. This complex attorney-client relationship evolves into one that proves to be dangerous for all.

Mea Culpa is a 2024 dramatic crime thriller written and directed by Tyler Perry. A criminal defense attorney takes up a domestic murder case when an artist is believed to have murdered his girlfriend – all hoping for the level of the case to propel them to the position of partner at their firm.ProsKelly Rowland and Trevante Rhodes have good chemistry. ConsTyler Perry’s script is overly dramatic and poorly written.The direction is devoid of visually pleasing, artistic representation.Perry struggles to write character actions that makes sense.Perry plays his cards too early, resulting in predictable twists.

Tyler Perry’s Writing Is Too Dramatic For Its Own Good

As with most of Tyler Perry productions, his latest starts out as an interesting examination of one woman’s struggle within a failing marriage. Mea is a beautiful, confident, and successful woman who has been disconnected from her husband Kal (Sean Sagar) lately. Kal is a mama’s boy to the overbearing and disapproving Azalia (Kerry O’Malley), who also happens to be suffering from cancer. At the center of Mea and Kal’s marriage are rumors of infidelity and dishonesty. Detrimentally, Kal can’t seem to stick up for his wife in front of his mother and brother Ray (Nick Sagar).

To make matters worse, the Harpers were suffering financially thanks to a pile-up of house and medical bills. And Kal is partially to blame as a recent addiction left him terminated from his job and unable to contribute. All these details about Mea’s marriage make for a great foundation that Perry sets up nicely. But once you get to the centerpiece of the film, the murder case, the script takes a turn for the worse, with increased drama, soap opera-like dialogue, and unreasonable twists and turns that would cause anyone’s head to spin.

To get them back on financial track, Mea takes on the Hydie murder case, which sees Zyair as the main suspect. But as in typical Perry fashion, the script makes the case more complicated than meets the eye. It’s also met with further complexity when Mea’s brother-in-law serves as the district attorney on the case. It doesn’t take someone familiar with Perry’s work to quickly understand how it will all play out in Mea Culpa. Truth be told, the director always plays his cards within the first 25 minutes, throwing all the subtlety out the window.

It’s a difficult film to take seriously, as it buries its potential in absurd drama, dialogue, and sequencing.

While the tension throughout this thriller is good, the did he/didn’t he conundrum never becomes a focus point for Perry’s story because of the dead giveaways. Perry doesn’t possess the cunning attention to detail or ability to redirect us. Instead, he distracts us with a budding, sensual lust story that goes from zero to a hundred in an unrealistic time frame. With Mea supposedly being a smart and capable attorney who can set aside her feelings to find the answers, she lets her emotions get the best of her, and she makes decisions that don’t make sense for her character.

Perry’s Direction Leads To A Film That’s Difficult To Take Seriously

That’s the kind of script Perry unsurprisingly hands his viewers. Mea Culpa is an unhinged, predictable story that isn’t as sexy or smart as Perry thinks it is. And for a film centered around art and its sensationalism, Perry’s direction is devoid of artistic representation save for one sequence that includes body paint, sex, and inexcusable lighting issues. Truthfully, the entire film is disappointing with its shockingly dull storytelling which is unable to paint a visually pleasing picture. It’s a difficult film to take seriously, as it buries its potential in absurd drama, dialogue, and sequencing.

Mea Culpa
is an unhinged, predictable story that isn’t as sexy or smart as Perry thinks it is.

Mea Culpa is one of those films you have to see for yourself to believe just how inferior it is to others within its genre. If anything, at least Rowland and Rhodes possess enough chemistry to carry the script from start to finish. Even then, the characters, their actions, and the murder mystery storytelling just aren’t there thanks to Perry’s inclination towards focusing on extreme dramatic circumstances. With poor directional choices, incessant cringe-worthy dialogue, and unnecessary plot twists, it’s best to look at Perry’s latest as an unserious guilty pleasure. Basically, it’s on-brand for the writer-director.

Mea Culpa (2024) Director Tyler Perry Release Date February 23, 2024 Studio(s) Tyler Perry Studios Distributor(s) Netflix Writers Tyler Perry Cast Kelly Rowland , Trevante Rhodes , Nick Sagar , Sean Sagar , RonReaco Lee , Shannon Thornton , Kerry O’Malley , Arianna Barron Runtime 120 Minutes