Tyler Perry is at it again. “Tyler Perry’s Duplicity,” now on Prime Video, reflects criticisms of the entrepreneur’s depiction of Black people and their stories in a questionable light. This criticism of Perry’s work is not fresh; it has been expressed by critics and filmmakers throughout his career. However, it is a disappointment to see him return to distasteful scripts and character development following his 2024 Netflix film “The Six Triple Eight,” which showed some promise regarding his storytelling capabilities and aspirations.
At the center of Perry’s latest are two career-driven women: Fela (Meagan Tandy) and Marley (Kat Graham). When Fela loses her husband to police brutality, Marley is there to pick up the pieces. As Marley and Fela’s co-workers band together to create a case against the city for yet another unjust murder of an unarmed Black man, there is looming mischief and deceit from the male characters. With strong emotional performances from the leads, the mystery stays afloat longer than it otherwise would, and, to the film’s credit, what was seemingly a predictable plot turned out to be a bit more complicated than it first appeared. Nonetheless, there was a point in the film where I resembled the popular “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” meme as I tried to keep up with the twists. The late introduction of some crucial characters caused a bit of temporary confusion, but it’ll rain cats and dogs before I let Tyler Perry make a fool of me.
The moment I smelled even an iota of police involvement in the film’s plot, I, unfortunately, knew how this would unfold. Despite the film’s title burying the lead, there is a smidge of curiosity in uncovering the truth: Was this shooting justified or was there something more insidious behind the murder? My mind immediately remembered this recent post that employs the tactics of bell hooks criticism to analyze the authentic development of Black characters and stories through a new tool called The Hooks Test, created by filmmaker LaChelle Chrysanne. Although one can assume that Tyler Perry does not craft his stories with the intention of being a disservice to the portrayal of Black people, “Tyler Perry’s Duplicity” begs the question as to what his goal is with this film.
The rot at the core of this film is because Perry feigns engagement with serious themes, such as racial profiling, media manipulation, domestic violence, and policing, but uses them as if they are Play-Doh. In “Tyler Perry’s Duplicity,” they are all mashed together, creating an unflattering color that is too difficult to untangle; we are left with a colorless mess. In reality, there is truth in each of these topics being deeply intertwined, so it makes sense that they all are acknowledged in some way throughout the film, but that require more nuance than is on display here. Perhaps the attempt of a plot twist was intended to make the audience forget that such consequential topics were not given the depth they require. As a filmmaker who proudly boasts of not having a writer’s room, many of his films, “Duplicity” included, would benefit from one in order to produce a more focused and thoughtful story, one that is more aware of its intended audience rather than just existing for the sake of “getting it out there.”
Perry’s work continues to flourish because of the saturation of streaming services that provide him with platforms to expand a brand that’s strong enough to use his name in the title. With that brand dominance in mind, we must acknowledge that not all movies are made with the intention of being groundbreaking commentary; sometimes B- , C- , or in some cases, F-movies exist solely for mindless enjoyment. But this disaster can’t be waved off as shallow escapism because “Tyler Perry’s Duplicity” fails on that level too, possibly keeping bored people engaged enough to follow its mystery but never really entertained.
