Mea Culpa Review: Mild Eroticism and Wildly Convenient Plot Make For a Hilariously Stupid Watch

Netflix’s newest legal thriller film Mea Culpa follows criminal defense attorney Mea who gets embroiled in a dangerous case when she decides to defend celebrated artist Zyair Malloy in a case where he is accused of murdering his girlfriend. But when her professional relationship turns personal and different feelings start to get muddled up, will she find the truth behind her whirlwind romance?

The film has a runtime of 120 minutes.

– No Spoilers –

Mea Culpa Review

Starting off by giving us a reason why Mea makes the decisions that she does in the latter part of the movie, Mea Culpa starts with the titular hotshot lawyer getting verbally destroyed by her mother-in-law and her husband not taking her side. The movie, at first, does a great job of making us root for our lead by putting her in an infuriating position and then dishing out the extremely enigmatic Zyair Malloy on a platter for her.

As with every erotic thriller, these two fall in love with each other hopelessly and desperately… well, more of a lusty kind of love. There was a lot of tension in the air both from Mea’s personal and professional lives and, of course, before long the sex cuts into it in order to add the steaminess into the mix.

Now, let’s first talk about everything other than the sex. Perry’s movie does a great job of making Mea’s personal life extremely cringy and grating and although the main thrilling element is to understand whether or not Zyair is a murderer, the defence attorney’s life is also extremely uncomfortable and infuriating to watch. It makes your skin itch and you are constantly forced to ask why she is with this odd man who doesn’t have much to give her.

On the flip side, when she meets this maybe murderer, who is enigmatic and seems to have more depth to him than anyone around her, she starts to get pulled in that direction in order to forget about the woes in her life. There is nothing new here and nothing about this will intrigue audiences either. Movies like these are built on the chemistry and the raw tension between the couple who are taking part in the affair – two people who can’t stay away from each other. However, Mea Culpa doesn’t make us fan ourselves at any point with Kelly Rowland and Trevante Rhodes’s chemistry.

If anything, both the actors look sort of frigid and whenever they try to talk in that sexy way it just comes off forced. Plus, there are just so many insane plot points that randomly pop up that it will make you question what is happening every few minutes. And sure, it’s a control thing; maybe Zyair is testing Mea’s boundaries and whatnot with his antics but it is so jarring to watch that it becomes unbelievable and a little silly. The more we cover the runtime, the more it becomes painfully apparent that there is very little to keep anyone invested in this paper-thin storyline.

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The problem I see with movies such as these is that the protagonist is just so easily manipulated that although you feel something for them at first, it just gets more and more stupid the more we see them. I mean, this is a hotshot attorney we are talking about; sure, she’s in a bad marriage but she’s not stupid. At least I don’t want to believe that she is but, much like Fatal Seduction and similar shows, things just happen in a particular way that showcases these female protagonists in a very demeaning way.

None of the women are respected in the movie (or in similar shows, for that matter) and none of them try to get that respect in any way. It’s like watching pitiable NPC characters fumbling about without an ounce of a gut feeling. In the end, they all win in some way but, for audiences, it never feels like a win that you can get behind because they seem to win it just for being the main character.

However, it’s the end of Mea Culpa that really goes off the rails. The “thrilling” twist comes out of nowhere and is so off from whatever has been happening for the rest of the movie that it feels like whiplash. Of course, there are little moments here and there that might make you join the dots a bit but it’s still just random and extremely rushed as well. We are not given an exact detail as to why everything went down in the end and you sit there wondering what crimes the news channel was talking about and why this became a weird control cult thing.

Coming to the sex – there is hardly anything, which is probably a good thing at this point considering Netflix’s roster of mindless erotic movies that constantly make your skin crawl. The passion and the steaminess are extremely missing in every scene and I started to wonder what’s erotic about any of this to be called an “erotic thriller”. You don’t feel the supposed passion between Mea and Zyair because the way the movie showcases their relationship is more about revenge rather than attraction. It doesn’t appeal in any way you see it.

Conclusion

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 and makes you wish for something alluring to watch so that you can drown out the silliness on-screen.

Mea Culpa is streaming on Netflix.

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