I think we can talk about this film now. I’m not really sure there is a point to ever reviewing Tyler Perry films. He seems to have these teflon contracts, and his name immediately draws attention, so people just keep on making more and more Tyler Perry projects invade our atmosphere. I’m beginning to think that because critics have been hard on Perry, he ignores reviews, and therefore is not capable of growth. in fact, he’s most likely to regress, as his desire to create no longer comes from necessity, or artistic merit, but out of obligation, or a drive to remain a recognizable brand.The goal is that he could put his name on anything, from a film or television series, to a magazine, or other mass media outlets. 24/7 Perry.
Duplicity doesn’t even make sense. it is so interested in throwing you for a loop, it throws out rhyme and reason to get there. The truly tragic thing is that for Perry, as a prolific black director out of Atlanta, he starts with what could have been a ripped from the headlines story about good old southern racism. the inciting incident here is a man killed while going for a run. That actually happened in Atlanta. however, other than that, the film isn’t at all concerned with social justice, or exploring race on any kind of deeper level. It is more concerned with bamboozling you so it can surprise you with an ending so hollow and empty, the true duplicity may be exuded from the director’s chair.
There are conversations people have, emotions they show, that make no sense when you get to the end, and realize those conversations and moments were for… the audience? This, much like the baffling ending of Mea culpa, doesn’t feel like going back through to show you all the little things you missed, because it knows we didn’t miss anything. the sky is blue, we saw it, we know it, but Perry is just going to shout at us that it is red, and try and fabricate a red sky. The villain reveal is so preposterous initially, and then doubles, and triples down.
Perry is good for employing actors who don’t seem to work anywhere else, and the star here is kat graham. But, there’s nothing about any performance around her worth mentioning. it is a bunch of actors who cannot save Tyler Perry’s awful script, and lackluster direction. He starts with a promising idea, but instead of driving off the cliff at the end of the road, it seems like he searches out for a different cliff to drive off. Like, instead of atypically failing at this movie, it actually feels like he sought out the ways in which he could fail.
By the end of the film, in a Who is Keizer soze way, it is like if Bryan Singer tried to make all the usual Suspects all Soze. Who is responsible? Possibly everyone. Because that at least will get people to talk about a film in some manner other than how poorly written and directed the film actually is. it feels like a Lifetime film lost to time, and refurbished, but without the intended 90210 star, or that one actress who did that one TV show 20 years ago you barely remember.
the best gift he could have given Kat would have been to let her star in something else, directed by someone who isn’t him.
Rotten: Final Grade: D+, Audio description: A-
