Mea Culpa suffers from an identity crisis and unless you are a huge fan of Kelly Rowland, give this one a skip.
The Good
- Kelly Rowland
- Trevante Rhodes
- A couple of so-bad-it's-good funny scenes
The Bad
- Convoluted
- Nonsensical
- The characters don't act like people
- Lackluster performances
Mea Culpa is a direct-to-streaming B-thriller about a lawyer with family problems who takes on a murder case where a tortured artist is accused of killing his girlfriend. The movie was written and directed by Tyler Perry, who seems to have built an impressively lucrative career out of writing and producing overly convoluted and lackluster stories.
Kelly Rowland stars as Mea, a criminal defence attorney stuck in a nightmare marriage with Kal (Sean Sagar). Not only is Kal extremely devoted to his dying mother, Azalia (Kerry O’Malley), but he’s also a drug addict who lost his job, forcing Mea to take on most of the family’s expenses.
When we first meet the couple, they’re trying to work on their issues in therapy, but Kal leaves halfway through the session because otherwise, he’d be late for mommy’s birthday party.
Our poor protagonist has in-laws from hell. Her mother-in-law makes no effort to hide her hatred of Mea and is even openly trying to find Kal a new wife.
Mea’s brother-in-law, Ray (Nick Sagar), is hoping to make his mark as a prosecutor in a high-profile case where famed artist Zyair (Trevante Rhodes) is accused of murdering his Mexican girlfriend. Of course, Zyair chooses Mea to represent him, and she decides to take on the case to spite her annoying mother-in-law.
At first, the prosecution’s case against Zyair seems a slam dunk. They have evidence of blood and the victim’s DNA embedded in his art. But when private investigator Jimmy (RonReaco Lee) starts looking into the case on behalf of the defence, it becomes apparent that something strange is happening here. By strange, I mean Jimmy spends more time stalking Mea’s husband than investigating the case.
Incoherent and not enjoyable
The problem with this B-movie is that it doesn’t even try to give viewers a semblance of a coherent story. Nothing the characters say or do during the two-hour runtime makes any sense.
Mea is supposed to be a highly successful lawyer, yet she appears desperate for the cash she can make from this one case. For someone who built a career by defending criminals, she acts like she has 0 experience dealing with them, and her professional boundaries are severely lacking.
The relationship between Zyair and our protagonist is even more confusing. Mea Culpa makes it a point of telling us Zyair is not only accused of his girlfriend’s murder, but at least two exes will testify in court about his violent nature. Mea doesn’t think he’s innocent, yet she has no qualms about meeting with this man alone in his apartment on multiple occasions.
It’s hard to tell if the passively cardboard performances by the entire cast are due to a lack of interest, or talent, or if the actors simply did the best they could with the material they were given. Trevante Rhodes, Kerry O’Malley, and Sean Sagar are known and competent actors, so I’m tempted to believe the latter.
While the plot holes and the robotic acting could be easily forgiven as part of the charm of watching a direct-to-Netflix B-thriller, it’s still hard to justify the film’s unreasonably long runtime. Instead of a fast-paced guilty pleasure, we get a slow movie with endless scenes of nonsensical dialogue.
Mea Culpa doesn’t know if it wants to be a murder mystery or a 90s-style erotic thriller, so it does both badly. Unless you’re a huge fan of Kelly Rowland, I wouldn’t recommend wasting your time with this one.