Acrimony 2018

2018

Tyler Perry proves once again that he is the master of Black Horror. There is nothing too extreme or too low for him to show on screen. Back alley abortion complete with wire hanger? yup.

Father throwing himself and young children out of a high rise building? Did it.

Mother pressuring daughter to marry the rich guy that beats her because he has money. Yea.

Oh and my favorite; cheating spouses get Aids. 

 In Acrimony I will admit that I was slightly impressed with how the story unraveled. It wasn't completely predictable like one would suspect from the trailers: 

"I'm Diana. Roberts fiance'."

However I was disappointed to see that once again Perry can not control himself and simply adds nonsense to his stories that make no sense and are just there for shock value. Much of Acrimony makes it hard to root for our supposed protagonist, Melinda; played by the marvelous Taraji P. Henson. She is incredible, as a broken down woman with zero joy in her life. Perry sure loves his women broken down and helpless. My problem is the lengths Perry has Melinda go through to prove her loyalty for her man. Her husband Robert (played by the brilliant Lyriq Bent) is an idiot for sure, but not an actual villain in my eyes. I find both culpable for where there lives end up.

Besides the two leads who were superb in their roles, some of the other actors were not good. The cinematography was very choppy and scenes were filmed at odd angles and in front of terrible green screens. 

There are some die-hard Tyler Perry fans out there that will probably enjoy this film. As for me, there were way too many plot holes to make this story believable. The sad thing is I can see where Tyler Perry was trying to go with this story and if certain aspects weren't there for the sake of shock value this film may have been more ratable. 

I appreciate Tyler Perry's hustle. His films  always do good in the theaters despite his low ratings from critics like myself. I just wish Perry wrote heartbreak more realistically. And don't get me started on that ending. For some reason Tyler Perry thinks a soap opera ending makes the film automatically good. All it does is prove how detached from reality he really is.                

Rating 2.0/5