Review: "MEA CULPA" May Be Tyler Perry's Craziest Movie... Yet

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 19 of 2024 (No. 1963) by Leroy Douresseaux

Mea Culpa (2024)

Running time:  120 minutes (2 hours)

MPA – R for strong sexual content, graphic nudity, language, some violence and drug use

WRITER/DIRECTOR:  Tyler Perry

PRODUCERS:  Will Areu, Tyler Perry, Angi Bones, and Kelly Rowland

CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Cody Burmester (D.o.P.)

EDITOR:  Larry Sexton

COMPOSERS:  Amanda Delores and Patricia Jones

DRAMA/THRILLER

Starring:  Kelly Rowland, Trevante Rhodes, Nick Sagar, Sean Sagar, RonReaco Lee, Shannon Thornton, Kerry O'Malley, Arianna Barron, Connor Weil, Maria Gabriela Gonzalez, Paul Ryden, Ava Hill, and Angela Robinson

SUMMARY OF THE REVIEW:

--Tyler Perry's Mea Culpa could be titled Tyler Perry's I Want to Screw My Client

--The first half of the film is a slow-burn (slightly dull) romantic thriller; the second half is an explosion of WTF moments

--Despite poorly developed and under-utilized characters and middling dialogue, Mea Culpa is a typical shameless Tyler Perry guilty pleasure – that I found somewhat pleasurable.

Mea Culpa is a 2024 drama and legal thriller from writer-director Tyler Perry.  The film is a “Netflix Original,” Perry's fourth for the streamer (as of this writing), and it began streaming on Netflix February 23, 2024.  Mea Culpa follows an ambitious criminal defense attorney who takes on the case of an artist accused of murder, which only further complicates her own dysfunctional marriage.

Mea Culpa introduces Chicago-based defense attorney, Mea Harper (Kelly Rowland).  She and her husband,  Kal Harper (Sean Sagar), are having marital difficulties, made worse by Kal's overbearing and interfering white mother, Azalia (Kerry O'Malley).  Forced to financially support the two of them because of Kal's professional and personal problems, Mea decides to take on the defense of an accused murderer.  Acclaimed portrait painter, Zyair Malloy (Trevante Rhodes), has been charged with the murder of his girlfriend, Hydie (Maria Gabriela Gonzalez).  Her body is missing, but there is enough blood evidence in Zyair's loft, where he lives and paints, to get him charged with murder.

The problem is that Mea's brother-in-law and Kal's older brother, Raymond “Ray” Harper (Nick Sagar), is the assistant district attorney who is prosecuting Zyair's murder case.  Also complicating matters is that Zyair does not respect boundaries and wants to f**k Mea.  Eventually, Mea will have to admit “mea culpa,” but that might not save her from the myriad conspiracies that surround Zyair Malloy and this case.

Mea culpa is a Latin phrase that means “my fault” or “my mistake,” and it is also an acknowledgment of having done wrong, a wrong that could have been avoided.  It's my fault that I love Tyler Perry's work so much because otherwise, I would not have watched Mea Culpa.  Make no mistake, however; loving Tyler Perry films, no matter how crazy they are, is not a wrong.  Mea Culpa may be Perry's craziest non-Madea film to date, being even wackier than Temptations: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor (2013).

Mea Culpa is quite enjoyable, especially the second hour of the film.  Critics tend to fault Perry's screenwriting, but the plot for Mea Culpa isn't any more nonsensical than a host of legal and erotic thrillers from the past five decades.  I'm thinking of Body Heat (1981), Presumed Innocent (1990), and Primal Fear (1996), to name a few.  If Mea Culpa had been released around a quarter-century ago, it would have been considered a clone of the classic erotic thriller, Basic Instinct (1992).

Where Perry's writing shows weakness is the dialogue and character development.  If the actors in this film seem average or mediocre to you, dear readers, I would bet it is because they are trying to build convincing characters while mouthing stiff, unimaginative dialogue.  The film's actual plot and action is not anywhere near as bland as the dialogue.  In fact, when this film finally explodes in the second half, even bad dialogue can't keep Mea Culpa's cheesy, shameless melodrama and violence from being its trashiest and most glorious self.  The shame of it is that there are some very interesting characters who are not fully realized and who would have made much the action in this film seem plausible, at the very least.  Perhaps, Mea Culpa should have been a miniseries instead of a film.

I must say that Mea Culpa may be Tyler Perry's most beautifully photographed film; kudos to director of photography, Cody Burmester.  The cinematography captures Kelly Rowland's unappreciated beauty, and when she gets nude, the camera celebrates her fineness.  Yes, Trevante Rhodes as Zyair Malloy is also fine, and the camera suggests that his big muscular body also comes with... an impressive endowment.  Yeah, the sex scene between Mea and Zyair is kinda funny, but they look so good pumping and bumping and grinding.

With Mea Culpa, Tyler Perry does unleash “strong sexual content, graphic nudity, language, some violence and drug use” as the “R” rating declares.  However, Perry's first almost NC-17 makes me love his work even more, and it makes me hope for future movies like Mea Culpa or even better.  I'll say “mea culpa” if I'm wrong and be happy about it.

6 of 10

B

★★★ out of 4 stars

Thursday, April 18, 2024

The text is copyright © 2024 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Review: Hurt and Turner Put All the Heat in "BODY HEAT"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 17 of 2022 (No. 1829) by Leroy Douresseaux

Body Heat (1981)
Running time: 113 minutes (1 hour, 53 minutes)
MPAA – R
WRITER/DIRECTOR:  Lawrence Kasdan
PRODCUER:  Fred T. Gallo
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Richard H. Kline (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Carol Littleton
COMPOSER:  John Barry

DRAMA/ROMANCE/CRIME

Starring:  William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, Richard Crenna, Ted Danson, J.A. Preston, Oscar Grace, Mickey Rourke, Kim Zimmer, Jane Hallaren, Lanna Saunders, and Carola McGuinness

Body Heat is a 1981 romance and crime drama written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan.  The film is set in Florida during a searing heat wave and focuses on a small-town lawyer and a sultry woman who conspire to murder her rich husband.

Body Heat introduces Ned Racine (William Hurt), an inept lawyer who operates out of Okeelanta County, in southern Florida, which is in the middle of a searing heatwave.  One night, he chances upon a very attractive woman, who is all alone.  Although she initially rebuffs his amorous attempts, she eventually gives in to Ned's advances and identifies herself as Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner).  She lives in a posh mansion with her mysteriously wealthy husband, Edmund Walker (Richard Crenna).  Edmund is usually away on business during the week, so that is when Matty is alone.

Ned and Matty begin a torrid affair.  When they can be together, they have lots of sex in the sweltering heat of the night.  When Edmund is home on the weekends, Matty longs to be with Ned, as he longs to be with her.  If Matty were to divorce her husband, an onerous marital prenuptial agreement would leave her with very little, but she would get half his estate if he died...  Matty wishes Edmund was dead, and Ned presents her with a way to get rid of him.  Ned believes that he has figured out how to get away with murder, but has he figured out Matty Walker?

William Hurt (1950-2022) recently died after a reported battle with cancer, and I was taken aback.  William Hurt was one of the biggest names in Hollywood in the 1980s when I was first coming of age an a film fan.  I have decided to go back and watch some of his films that I'd previously seen and also to watch some for the first time.  One of those first time films is Body Heat, which was only the third film in which he'd starred.  It is apparently the film that made him a “bankable” Hollywood movie star.

Body Heat is also the film debut of Kathleen Turner.  Her physicality and obvious and frank sexuality made her a star of the 1980s.  Her adventurousness in choosing movie roles created an eclectic filmography, but Turner's star waned in the 1990s.  In Body Heat, however, she is ready to unleash her unique skill set on the world.  Matty Walker is Turner's signature work, and bits and pieces of the character and her performance of the character continued to show up in her work in the decades that followed the original release of Body Heat.

Here, in Body Heat, Hurt and Turner are stars ascendant.  At first, I wondered if they would have screen chemistry, and from my point of view, they are magnificent together.  The fact that they are willing to be naked together so often in this film speaks to their professionalism and also the depth of their skill as actors.  Both had performed on stage before they entered the world of Hollywood films, so they had acting experience.  That experience was needed in filming what has been described as many explicit sex scenes that were not included in the finished film.

Still, what is left on screen is hot and nasty.  Turner and Hurt are so hot together that they damn near burned this film down, which it needs.  The truth is that Body Heat is rather tepid.  The film is described as a “neo-noir,” a modern version of the classic Hollywood film genre, “Film-Noir.”  Outside of the depictions of sex and nudity, Body Heat's story and the execution of its narrative, to me, seem rather tame compared to a film like, for instance, 1950's Gun Crazy, another romantic crime drama about a killer couple.  Writer-director Lawrence Kasdan, one of the best writer-directors and screen writers of the last five decades, apparently found inspiration for Body Heat in the 1944 Film-Noir classic, Double Indemnity.  Well, it's time for me to see that one.

Beside Ned Racine and Matty Walker, I like the other characters in this film.  Richard Crenna is really good in a small role as Edmund Walker; he deserved more screen time.  Ted Danson's Peter Lowenstein is good, but seems extraneous in this film, and J.A. Preston's Oscar Grace, a police detective, has his best moments in Body Heat's last act.  Also, if you ever wondered what Hollywood executives saw in Mickey Rourke that would make him a star, his small but potent turn as Teddy Lewis, an explosives expert and former client of Ned's, reveals the first glimmer of his movie star potential.

Body Heat is not William Hurt's best work, but his quirky takes make Ned Racine an interesting character.  Kasdan throws out hints about the general sloppy nature of Ned's skills as an attorney and also his inability to see the big picture.  Hurt takes that the rest of the way, creating a Ned Racine that is not savvy enough not to be a fall guy, but too smart not to figure it out eventually.  Body Heat is not a crime fiction classic, but it is a classic “erotic thriller.”  Hurt and Turner make it so.

7 of 10
B+

Saturday, March 26, 2022


NOTES:
1983 BAFTA Awards:  1 nomination:  “Most Outstanding Newcomer to Leading Film Roles” (Kathleen Turner)


The text is copyright © 2022 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Review: "Basic Instinct" is Still a Killer (Happy B'day, Sharon Stone)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 129 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux

Basic Instinct (1992)
Running time: 123 minutes (2 hours, 3 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong violence and sensuality and for drug use and language
DIRECTOR: Paul Verhoeven
WRITER: Joe Eszterhas
PRODUCER: Alan Marshall
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jan De Bont, A.S.C.
EDITOR: Frank J. Urioste, A.C.E.
COMPOSER: Jerry Goldsmith
Academy Award nominee

THRILLER/CRIME/MYSTERY

Starring: Michael Douglas, Sharon Stone, George Dzundza, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Denis Arndt, Leilani Sarelle, Bruce A. Young, Chelcie Ross, Dorothy Malone, Wayne Knight, and Daniel von Bargen

The subject of this movie review is Basic Instinct, a 1992 erotic thriller and mystery film directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by the great Joe Eszterhas. The film follows a police detective in charge of the investigation of a brutal murder and a beautiful and seductive woman who could be involved.

Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) is a tough, but vulnerable San Francisco detective – vulnerable because he’s under the watchful eye of Internal Affairs after he’d shot and killed some tourists during a pursuit of suspects. Nick has also complicated his life by having intimate relations with the therapist, Dr. Beth Garner (Jeanne Tripplehorn), his bosses are making him see.

The story begins after a prominent community member is found bound and brutally murdered (stabbed with an ice pick) in his blood-soaked bed. Nick’s life and job get even more convoluted when he and his partner, Gus Moran (George Dzundza), are assigned to be the lead detectives in the case. The prime suspect is Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone), a cold, calculating, and beautiful novelist with an insatiable sexual appetite. Catherine takes an immediate interest in Nick and delves into his past, but is she using him for reference in her new novel or is she dragging Nick into an even more dangerous game. As the bodies pile up, Nick wonders if a jealous rival of Catherine’s or of his and Catherine’s relationship is out to frame her… and kill him. Or is Catherine behind all the murders?

Basic Instinct was one of the most talked about and controversial movies of 1992. Protests from gay rights groups marred the film’s production shoot after the script was leaked and it was learn that all the murder suspects in the film were lesbian characters. When the film was finally released, Basic Instinct’s explicit sex, tawdry subject matter, and riveting crime plot made it one of the year’s biggest box office hits and the poster child for those who believed sex and violence in Hollywood films had finally crossed too many lines.

But the film was good… no, great. Hot sex, hot girls, beautiful locations in San Francisco and the surrounding area, swanky sets, multiple plausible murder suspects, and a cop nearly out of his mind chasing hot ass – Basic Instinct was and still is a thoroughly delightful adult thriller. Director Paul Verhoeven created a murder mystery in the tradition of films such as Out of the Past and Murder, My Sweet. If Basic Instinct weren’t a color film, it would be a modern Film-Noir classic.

There were good performances all around, and the best were Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone’s. The duo had great screen chemistry, and Ms. Stone played the part for all it was worth, making her a top-billed, highly paid actress for the next few years. Rarely had there been so much sexual tension, distrust, dishonesty, and brazenness between a screen couple that couldn’t stop “being” with one another, and Douglas coolly played the role on the way to solidifying his position as an A-list actor.

One element that was absolutely necessary in making Basic Instinct such a sexy thriller is the Oscar-nominated score (Best Music, Original Score) by the late Jerry Goldsmith (1929-2004). Haunting and alluring, it helps the film capture some of the screen magic of crime films from the golden age of Hollywood. Goldsmith also provided the right musical themes and rhythms to go with Michael and Sharon’s pummel-your-partner love scenes.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
1993 Academy Awards: 2 nominations: “Best Film Editing” (Frank J. Urioste) and “Best Music, Original Score” (Jerry Goldsmith)

1993 Golden Globes, USA: 2 nominations: “Best Original Score - Motion Picture” (Jerry Goldsmith) and “Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama” (Sharon Stone)

1992 Cannes Film Festival: 1 nomination: “Palme d'Or” (Jerry Goldsmith)

1993 Razzie Awards: 3 nominations: “Worst Actor” (Michael Douglas, also for Shining Through -1992), “Worst New Star” ("Sharon Stone's 'Tribute to Theodore Cleaver'"), and “Worst Supporting Actress” (Jeanne Tripplehorn)

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Review: "Basic Instinct 2" Doesn't Come Close to the Original (Happy B'day, Sharon Stone)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 182 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

Basic Instinct 2 (2006)
Running time: 114 minutes (1 hour, 54 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong sexuality, nudity, violence, language, and some drug content
DIRECTOR: Michael Canton-Jones
WRITERS: Leora Barish & Henry Bean (based upon characters by Joe Eszterhas)
PRODUCERS: Mario Kassar, Joel B. Michaels, and Andrew G. Vajna
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Gyulas Pados (director of photography)
EDITOR: Istvan Kiraly and John Scott
COMPOSER: John Murphy
Razzie Award winner

MYSTERY/THRILLER

Starring: Sharon Stone, David Morrissey, Charlotte Rampling, David Thewlis, Hugh Dancy, Stan Collymore, Neil Maskell, Indira Varma, Heathcote Williams, and Flora Montgomery

The subject of this movie review is Basic Instinct 2, a 2006 erotic thriller and mystery film. Directed by Michael Canton-Jones, the film is a sequel to the 1992 film, Basic Instinct. Sharon Stone returns from the original film, but not her co-star, Michael Douglas. In the new film, Stone’s character, novelist Catherine Tramell, is again in trouble with the law, and she lures the Scotland Yard psychiatrist appointed to evaluate her into a seductive game.

Charged with the murder of her fiancé, Kevin Franks (Stan Collymore), best-selling novelist, Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone), is once again in trouble with the law – this time in London. Catherine faces questioning from Dr. Michael Glass (David Morrissey), a Scotland Yard-appointed criminal psychiatrist. Before long, more people are turning up dead all around Catherine, just as it did a decade and a half ago in San Francisco. The suspects are plenty, and the players include a conniving reporter and a dirty cop, as well as many of Glass’ friends and associates. An old case of Glass’ also comes into play. Did he know that George Cheslav (unseen in the film), a psychotic patient of his, was going to kill his girlfriend? Tramell sees the case as a chance to manipulate Glass as fodder for her new novel – about a psychiatrist who may or may not have committed murder. Glass has the training to withstand Catherine’s mind games, or does he? Can he even match her willpower? And what happens when the evidence from the murders start pointing to him as much as it does to Catherine?

Basic Instinct 2 isn’t good, nor is it really bad. It starts off with a bang, but most of it is dry, dull, and awkward, in spite of a good moment here and there and a killer ending that leaves the viewer asking questions just as the first film did. One wonders why we really needed a sequel to the San Francisco-based neo-noir, Basic Instinct, although there has been talk of one ever since the film became a blockbuster hit in 1992. Leora Barish and Henry Bean’s script is a good murder mystery, but it’s wrong for the Catherine Tramell character. Tramell certainly belongs in a lurid murder mystery; this just isn’t the one. Putting her in this British-based tale of deception and hard sex is like putting Shrek in The Lord of the Rings just because the former is a fantasy-based character and the latter is an epic fantasy.

Director Michael Canton-Jones (Scandal) tries to give this film some style, and judging from the explicit “love scenes,” he knows how to direct a hot sex scene. Sharon Stone still is Catherine Tramell, but she’s trying to hard, and Canton swoops in on her every wicked facial expression. For fans of the original, this is merely a curiosity piece and one that tries the patience.

3 of 10
C-

Saturday, August 19, 2006

NOTES:
2007 Razzie Awards: 4 wins: “Worst Actress” (Sharon Stone), “Worst Picture” (A.K.A. Basically, It Stinks, Too-Sony and Columbia), “Worst Prequel or Sequel” (A.K.A. Basically, It Stinks, Too), and “Worst Screenplay” (Leora Barish and Henry Bean, based on characters created by Joe Eszterhas); 3 nominations: “Worst Director” (Michael Caton-Jones), “Worst Screen Couple” (Sharon Stone's lop-sided breasts.), and “Worst Supporting Actor” (David Thewlis, also for The Omen-2006)

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