A Fall From Grace

Tyler Perry's Netflix trifle A Fall From Grace is a soapy thriller with monstrous implausibility and criminal misuse of some talented actors. Perry himself can deliver a line when directed but his own narratives are unimaginative, formulaic. In this one, middle-aged divorcee Grace Waters (Crystal Fox) is courted by a young, studly beringed photographer in a Larry Blackmon high-top 'fro (Mehcad Brooks) whom she soon marries. Predictably, he turns out to be a cad and a thief who cheats on Grace in their bedroom! Grace, shamed and taunted, bashes him in the head with a bat and ends up arrested.

A poorly schooled and nearly indifferent public defender, Jasmine, played by Bresha Webb, is assigned to Grace's case to enter a guilty plea but is persuaded something is amiss, because the cad's body was never found. Meanwhile, Grace's BFF Sarah (Phylicia Rashad), who has been in her corner all the while, becomes Jasmine's only hope of winning an acquittal, as Jasmine hopes to convince the jury the Sunday School cookie baker was too nice to kill her husband -- even though Grace admits to having done it. Yes, it's an unholy mess with a howlingly ridiculous twist at the end that will send many viewers screaming from the room -- if they hadn't already done so.

Perry is the fabulously wealthy purveyor of urban market schlock who many people will defend as a dependable and known commodity. You'll never get art from Mr. Perry but his fans don't want that. They want shrieking women in Vera Wang and Red Bottoms and the men who love (or hate) them. One doesn't stumble blindly into a Tyler Perry experience; one enters with eyes and ears wide open. And that's the real crime.