A few years ago, Tyler Perry was an actor in David Fincher's Gone Girl (2014), an erotic thriller about a man, played by Ben Affleck, who's accused of killing a woman after that woman goes missing. It seems as if Perry was inspired because this film has essentially the same premise. It's an all African-American version with an even stranger change. Fincher's version focuses on Affleck's character and what he experiences through this scenario. As writer-director, Perry's version focuses on the lawyer representing the murder suspect. In other words, Perry's film centers on the character type he himself played in Fincher's Oscar-nominated adaptation. Except, it's gender-swapped.
Kelly Rowland (Grown-ish and Empire) stars as Mea Harper, the lawyer in question. She's a very successful, defense attorney in Chicago. It's not clear if she's a partner, but she has her own assistant and her own fancy office. Her only issues are in her personal life. She's married with no children. She and her husband though are in therapy and need counseling. A lot of the issues stems from her husband. Mea is very frustrated. It becomes a matter of her and her husband staying together or splitting apart, which is basically the final question of Gone Girl.
Trevante Rhodes (The Predator and Moonlight) co-stars as Zyair Malloy, an artist who is a celebrity painter. He's out on bail, but his trial is approaching. He's apparently charged with murdering his girlfriend. There is a lot of evidence against him, almost too much. It's not stated, but his girlfriend's body was never found. A conspicuous amount of evidence and no body make this very likely that something else is occurring. Rhodes is the Affleck of this film. The difference is that Affleck's character came off as more innocent and unassuming. Here, Zyair behaves more like he could be guilty. Deconstructing the evidence and trying to prove his innocence don't seem to be his concern. His only concern is sex and his sex appeal appears to be the only quality in which Perry has any interest. Zyair is seductive, as Rhodes is incredibly attractive, but Zyair has an obvious air of mystery and danger. He certainly has no qualms hitting on a married woman.
It's obvious that something will happen between Mea and Zyair. It would be adultery and unethical for her to sleep with her client, but the question of this film is if it will actually happen. Perry's script has legal knowledge, but it doesn't dive too deep into the details or evidence. The majority of the time, it's Mea talking to Zyair over his womanizing or the possibility of them hooking up. Netflix's The Lincoln Lawyer (2022) went down a similar track of a lawyer and their client possibly hooking up but that series never loses sight of the courtroom drama of it all. This one does, which isn't necessarily a bad thing because Gone Girl never goes into the courtroom either, but that film focuses on the overall mystery and even delving into the why of it in deeper ways than this one.
Sean Sagar (Guy Ritchie's The Covenant and Blue Story) also co-stars as Kal Harper, the husband to Mea. He lost his job. He's dealing with his overbearing mother who apparently is dying from cancer, despite her continuing to be overbearing. He's also an addict who might be on the verge of having an affair, if he hasn't already. He says he wants to work on his marriage, but it doesn't seem like he wants to stand up or push back against his mother who clearly hates Mea.
Of course, a simple love triangle between Mea, Kal and Zyair isn't all that Tyler Perry concocts. A possible romance with a murder suspect, even in the vein of Basic Instinct (1992), isn't even enough for Perry. It's not sure if Perry watches a lot of Lifetime movies, which has become the domain for pulpy thrillers, centered on women in peril, but his film gets to a point where it could be categorized as such. It feels as if Perry also certainly watches soap operas, such as General Hospital (1963) or Days of Our Lives (1965) because the twists and turns are very much out of a daytime drama's handbook but unveiled bluntly at the end, almost in a manner that's meant to spoof soap operas but in a tone that's almost meant to be dark and gritty. Gone Girl balanced those kinds of twists and turns with nuance and subtlety. This one doesn't.
Nick Sagar is the real-life, older brother of Sean Sagar. They both are British actors who both appeared in their feature debut of Ill Manors (2012). Nick Sagar started acting in American productions before his younger brother. He even started working for Tyler Perry first. Nick Sagar appeared in the fourth season of Tyler Perry's The Haves and the Have Nots (2017) in which he played an aspiring politician. He's essentially playing the same thing here. He plays Ray Harper, the older brother to Kal and the Assistant District Attorney of Chicago who is hoping one day to be the mayor.
As one might guess, Ray is the prosecutor on Zyair's case. There is enough inherent drama in a brother and sister-in-law on opposite sides of a court case and navigating the conflict of interest. Perry's film could have just been about that conflict. Yet, he merely teases this because again Perry's film isn't a courtroom drama. Neither is Gone Girl, but the machinations were more intriguing, meaning how Affleck's character got to the point where he would be almost put on trial for murder is more intriguing. Here, the machinations of how Zyair got to that same point aren't intriguing, as they simply seem ridiculous, convoluted and too complicated. Yet, if you're a fan of Perry and his previous works, this will be on par with a lot of his previous stuff.
The threads of the mystery also don't seem properly threaded. A lot of that mystery becomes about Kal and Ray, as well as the Harper family as a whole. Perry gives us some bombastic or creepy scenes with that family, headed by Kal and Ray's mom, Azalia, played by Kerry O'Malley (Snowpiercer and Shameless), but anything substantial that goes beyond the superficial is lacking. There are a few good scenes between Mea and Kal because it felt like there was something genuine between them. Everything between Mea and Zyair felt forced and not authentic or even natural. Obviously, Rowland and Rhodes are both beautiful and attractive but having beautiful and attractive people isn't enough for eroticism. There was also a sex scene between them involving paint that I thought was more messy than sexy.
Rated R for sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use and language.
Running Time: 2 hrs.
Available on Netflix.