Mea Culpa

 This review may contain spoilers!

 

Mea Culpa follows Mea Harper, a defense attorney who becomes embroiled over the mystery of her aerist client, Zyair Malloy's case and whether or not he killed his ex-girlfriend. At the same time Mea must face familial pressure to drop the case as her brother in-law, assistant to the District Attorney, lands the prosecution spot of the case and hopes to use the opportunity for a mayoral campaign.

 

The thing that works best with this thriller is when we get to sit with Mea as a character. She is a phenomenal protagonist who has to stay held together through a marriage that is imploding, a family who openly show signs of rejecting her and a case that is taking a heavy mental and emotional toll. Watching Mea analyse her husband, trying to understand if he was cheating on her while still holding the illusion of their life together by lying for him was interesting. I also enjoyed that she openly antagonised her in-laws who equally seemed beset against her, she was constantly being played off against others and seemed to have to fight for herself a lot. Watching all of these personal issues bleed into her casework and compromise her, to the point that she was effectively seduced by her client was an interesting journey to being compromised.

The soundtrack for this film film was incredible and spoke to the 'sleepycity with illicit affairs taking place' setting of the piece; 'Walk On By' by Isaac Hayes was my favourite track and it called to the way Mea was described as longing at one point while also noting the way she had to constantly move past her troubles.

 

RonReaco Lee, who played Jimmy, has some great chemistry with Rowland as her friend and confidante; I thought Lee moved scenes with a light charisma that really carried him and his scene where he tried to read Rhodes' character was one of my favourites. Nick Sagar, who played Ray, was quite interesting as the cool and arrogant DA's assistant; Sagar really built the work in to unveiling himself as an antagonist figure. Angela Robinson, who played Renee, was compelling for her major scene; Robinson's portrayal of someone who is so jaded and bitter from having been left behind is an interesting character moment and a great scene.

However, the best performance came from Kelly Rowland, who played Mea Harper. This was a feat of acting that really held you from start to finish. When first we meet Rowland she is struggling through marriage counselling; composing herself but containing feelings of hurt and anger that make themselves known throughout. Mea has this very personable approach and she seems a little larger than life, her presence in a scene is phenomenal. Rowland really captures the hard, professional edge to the role and she was very believable as this much respected attorney. Watching Rowland come at a case with such intensity, and studious inent was pretty fascinating and a unique role for her. I loved how Rowland slowly broke down that professional layer in her approach to her scenes with Rhodes; the way that got out of control for her character was fascinating. I also ultimately enjoyed watching Rowland claim back her character's agency, reject Zyair and stand against the criminal connections within her family. In my honest opinion, Kelly Rowland is THE reason to watch Mea Culpa.

I really expected more from Tyler Perry and I'm not really sure why; perhaps because he has become such a rising fixture in developing cinema or because he has a really good streak with dramatic roles. But this film just didn't feel like a fully developed project at all. The script was very inconsistent and more often than not played out like a telenovella. The will they/won't they element of the Harper's marriage isn't very interesting beyond Mea's perspective and it was difficult to understand why they were together in the first place. The wider extended family and the family issues in general were extremely over the top; moving through a fake cancer subplot wasn't even the worst thing going on here. What I struggled with the most was that this film really packaged itself as a legal thriller to some extent but the legal case is barely focused on. Even in scenes with Zyair, the focus is barely on the case. In fact there is a lot of trying to break down who Zyair is, and if he has it in him to be a murderer. But the plot doesn't convince me there really is enough substance to Zyair at all for this level of focus; he says these big passages of dialogue that rarely mean much of anything at all. The fact Zyair and Mea sleep together is a whole plot moment that comes together quite abruptly; while it might be the sexiest moment of 2024 it's not really a character relationship that is very well earned. But nothing really compares to the sudden conspiracy that is the final act, in which so many plot twists that don't really hold up are introduced all within ten minutes of each other. It makes the whole thriller become increasingly outlandish and by the end of everything it's not really clear how the final antagonists came to be about; the plot didn't serve this hook enough.

Mea Culpa also doesn't look good most of the time, the camera can sometimes be placed at some really questionable angles and the crane and dolly work in this is often crude. I also found this film to have a real lighting problem, there were so many scenes where the light just looked horrendously poor. The editing for the feature set a slog of a pace, and the juddering edits within the sex scene felt like a music video editor has jumped in for a second to spin the decks. This film felt like a newcomer had been given a budget much bigger than what they had ever worked with and simultaneously blew it and didn't know how to use it. The score for the feature also didn't leave much of an impression on me, there needed to be some more themed up musical pieces across this.

Trevante Rhodes, who played Zyair Malloy, has entirely no range in this film and is a terrible scene partner for Rowland; this role is meant to be mysterious and leave us questioning but instead it made me wonder if Rhodes actually wanted to do this film. Kerry O'Malley, who played Azalia Hawthorne, was a bit over the top as the antagonistic mother in-law; her whole villain arc spiral at the end just became more of a parody than anything else. Sean Sagar, who played Kal, was one of the most over the top performances of the whole thing; Sagar clearly struggled with the intricacies of portraying a husband failing in his marriage and so took things too big where a subtler approach could've worked. Shannon Thornton, who played Charlise, was quite an unimpressionable role and performance; Thornton didn't feel especially connected to anyone else and tended to drop into the background in her scenes.

Beyond an absolutely captivating performance from Kelly Rowland, there is little else worth mentioning about Tyler Perry's latest thriller. I would give Mea Culpa a 4/10.