Duplicidad

I honestly don't know what it is about Tyler Perry's movies, but he has a habit of hiring ridiculously attractive people who just can't act. Duplicity is no exception. The dialogue is painfully awkward, filled with lines that don't sound like anything real people would say, and the way the actors deliver them makes it even worse. Everything is over-acted. The entire movie feels forced, unnatural, and honestly, a little embarrassing to watch. Everything is off. Everything is melo-dramatic, overblown and just overall Youtube influencer type of acting.

The only reason I even gave this movie a chance was because of Kat Graham. She was great in The Vampire Diaries, so I know she's capable of delivering a strong performance. But here? It was actually painful to watch her act alongside people who seemed like they had never stepped in front of a camera before. Every interaction was stiff, robotic, and lacking any real chemistry. It's like they just grabbed random people off the street and put them in a major film with zero preparation.

On top of that, the plot is just messy. It's predictable, overly dramatic in the worst way, and full of cringeworthy moments that made me want to turn it off multiple times. I kept waiting for it to get better, for something to make it all worth sitting through, but it never did.

If you're looking for a well-acted, engaging movie, this is not it. It's frustratingly bad, and the only thing worse than the acting is the writing. Don't waste your time.

Super slow moving unbelievable, literally impossible, plot, so NOT great crime, couldn't happen in a million years, like a high schooler's 1st attempt at a crime novel, with a ton of gaping holes, great actors and actresses but the script drags on and it looks like the actors themselves are having trouble figuring out which part of the plot they are in, the reactions don't always match the storyline. The last 2 minutes did have one great scene where the summary of how we should as a society face police shootings was a great line. So, wait for the movie to be free and watch the last 2 minutes; you will get the point I'm sure Tyler Perry had in mind. Following the storyline also makes the viewer have to struggle to put it together, because it's a puzzle of plots that don't quite fit, like struggling to put together a puzzle and realizing it's a collage of mismatched images with several plots, not interconnected, a puzzle with several images within one. LIke a story written by several different people who didn't know for sure what the other writers were going to write.

STAR RATING: ***** Brilliant **** Very Good *** Okay ** Poor * Awful

Marley Wells (Kat Graham) is a high flying attorney, with a loving husband, Tony (Tyler Perry, also starring?!!) and her best friend, Fela (Meagan Tandy.) However, when Fela's partner, Kevin (RonReaco Lee) is slain in a police stop, by new recruit Officer Caleb (Jimi Stanton), under the supervision of family friend Shannon (Shannon LaNier), Wells's life is thrown into a whirlwind of disarray, with a devastating truth where everything may not be as it seems.

For the fourth time in the space of a year (including his two and a half hour unseen farrago Divorce in the Black), writer/director Tyler Perry has another passion project on the go that he can't wait for us all to see. Featuring a no name cast, including, it seems, the man himself, here he has a stab at a suspense thriller with a social justice slant thrown in ('cos that's still an in thing), but if at first he didn't succeed, trying, trying and trying again really hasn't worked for him.

The theme of black men being shot dead in police stops still holds a great deal of passion for many, and so it's still a fairly inspired premise on which to base a new film, but here it's delivered in such a ham fisted, heavy handed manner that it has no effect. There is the slightest hint of genuine suspense and mystery to the story, but it's quickly drowned out by descending into a preposterous, drawn out ending that pollutes the rest of the project.

Missieur Perry would do well to consider the likes of Uwe Boll, and even the 'legendary' Ed Wood, and consider his present trajectory in their direction before he gets carried away again. **

Interesting Amazon original movie.

It is a modest police thriller, in some ways also with a fairly predictable ending, which however has the greatest merit of addressing, in a fairly clear and understandable way, also some socially burning and politically always very current issues, namely the training techniques of police officers, the superficial and approximate way of closing certain legal cases through plea bargaining, the domestic violence and, above all, the racism.

Aesthetically, the work is very good, filmed in 4K, it is practically free from criticism.

In my humble opinion, it is worth seeing, provided that one has a certain indulgence towards certain glaring interpretative errors (even on the part of the protagonists, unfortunately). It is certainly not a boring movie, even if, as already mentioned, it lacks originality.

It started out okay. The premise wasn't amazing, but it had just enough going on to keep me watching. The setup hinted at something interesting-maybe a decent thriller-but that potential quickly fades.

The plot becomes painfully predictable. Every twist is telegraphed well in advance, and what should've been suspenseful ends up feeling like a checklist of overused tropes.

I felt sorry for Kat Graham being surrounded by such bad actors. Some of the acting is just dire. Honestly, it feels like half the cast is reading lines off cue cards.

Kat Graham stands out as the only actor who seems to be trying, and it's a shame she's surrounded by performances that drag everything down. She deserves better.

The dialogue doesn't help. At times it's melodramatic, at others it's painfully flat. Combined with inconsistent pacing and clunky scene transitions, the whole thing starts to feel like a rushed soap opera.

And then there's the ending. Ridiculous doesn't even begin to cover it. Implausible, rushed, and honestly kind of insulting. After sticking it out, you're rewarded with a conclusion that doesn't make sense and completely undermines whatever buildup there was.

In short: a forgettable, frustrating film that wastes both its audience's time and Kat Graham's talent. Tyler Perry has done better. This one misses the mark by a mile..