or, “Waiting-Out Your Shift on the Toilet”:
A spoiler-free mini movie review.
1 out of 5
“Life is like an onion. Peel it back one layer at a time. Sometimes you weep.”
– Carl Sandberg
Recently, I went to a boring live drama where the players hardly moved – not even to monologue. In media, you shouldn’t have this problem because editors exist, where theatre fills that gap with the ‘live’ experience.
Jack-of-all-trades Tyler Perry’s new Prime collaboration “Duplicity”, however, is so top-loaded with actors in closed rooms retching phlegmatic dialogue, that Perry seems overwhelmed by his own cinematic mediocrity, and reverts back to his theatrical training. This results in stagers either sitting or standing across from one-another completely stationary, endlessly overstating their positions. It’s the filmmaking equivalent of waiting-out the end of your shift on the toilet.
[cont’d]
No doubt Perry began the project with bold aspirations: to ‘peel back’ every layer of a police-involved shooting, while using the political subtext as backdrop for a scorned-lover thriller. But the final product is so poorly arranged, it’ll serve to further disparage critics of his assembly line-like workflow.
Despite the nonfilmic nature of a live theatre background, you can still (generally) expect great ensembles from Perry, regardless of the hard standards of the productions that surround them (see Janet Jackson in both “Why Did I Get Married” movies). Here, Kat Graham’s stoic portrayal of indomitable lawyer Marley is so monotone, you’d think she has palilalia: she’s stuck in one emotional tier, where real conversations ebb & flow. She shows more range when reconciling with some body-cam footage but – on-the-whole – I’d wager she was either miscast, or misdirected.
There’s a dissonance between Duplicity’s intentions, and its audience: Perry wants his poli-social themes to hit hard, but doesn’t trust the viewer to figure things out themselves, resulting in condescending, soap-opera style plotting, which includes the banging line, “It’s big, it’s black, it’s unusual.”
Scripted lines in cable television are often repetitious, but that’s to keep the audience on-track to what was once a 20-episode season order. Here, as a trait of a two-hour movie, my wife & I were left bewildered from the dense explication underlying an establishing shot of a spin-class parking lot, which doesn’t specify the relationship between the two leads, but makes sure they both have boob sweat (albeit with dry waistlines).
Tyler Perry movies are like onions: some aren’t as moldy on the inside, but they still smell funny.
//wd 4.9.2025
Poster sourced from impawards.com. As of publication, Duplicity is an Amazon Prime exclusive in Western Canada (non-sponsored). What do you think? Will you defend Tyler Perry to the ends of the Earth? Do you think Perry was biting off more than he could chew by mish-mashing so many crucial, topical themes into what boils down to an archetypal suspenser? Leave us a comment below!
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