Mea Culpa

While it might start out as an erotic thriller, it slows down to a damp relationship drama before meandering its way to a climax hinged on head-scratching twists that make little to zero sense.

Is creating a guilty pleasure something a director can — or even should — aim for? That’s one of the questions wafting over the writer-director Tyler Perry’s willfully steamy thriller “Mea Culpa.”

With frigid performances, terribly written characters, convenient plot twists and random storylines that come out of nowhere, Mea Culpa is not only forgettable but extremely stupid.

Ridiculous.

No matter what new low Tyler Perry sinks to, an audience will always be willing to give it a shot for exactly the same reason we crane our necks when driving past car wrecks.

The good news is, Tyler Perry has embraced AI as a writing tool. The bad news is his latest attempt at a schlocky erotic thriller is so offensively stupid he should be forced to issue a formal mea culpa.

A disappointing flick.

[Mea Culpa] needs to be hotter and more thrilling, or campier and more ridiculous. Tragically it falls somewhere in the middle.

Mea culpa presents a confusing and overloaded narrative, where the elements of desire and danger are artificially intertwined, resulting in a predictable, unoriginal narrative framework. [Full review in Spanish]

The film's action-filled climax is neither realistic nor well-constructed.