There will be spoilers.
1. Guys, A Fall from Grace is a Tyler Perry (TP) movie. At this point, there is NOTHING more indicative of what a movie will be than having the words “Tyler Perry” attached to it. Expectations should never even exist. I watch his films because they exist and because I’m rooting for everybody black, not because I’m looking for award-winning content.
2. At the same time, I know that one of two things will happen with a TP film: 1) we’ll get a bad bad movie like Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor or a good bad movie like The Family That Preys. The Madea movies represent some odd middle ground that manages to be both terrible and entertaining at the same damn time (at the same damn time). Madea would have made Temptation better, though. Acrimony, too, since we’re here.
3. I was completely entertained by A Fall from Grace. It’s almost impossible to not be. It’s as if TP was excited while writing this movie, alone, and didn’t even attempt more than one draft. He finished that shit and was like, “You know what? Fuck it, I like it.” Then he got on the phone and was like, “Jerome, where my mirror at? Get me a cast and crew! We got ourselves a movie here!” He was not wrong.
4. The amount of nonsense in this movie is so bad that it is comical and thus entertaining. A young, artsy chap who just had a fucking GALLERY showing and the new old object of his desire went on a first date...AT A DINER. Read that again: a diner. Grace (the new old object of his desire) was actually looking at and deciding on various outfits FOR THIS SHIT? Nigga, I guffawed. Never mind, the white man-eating and drinking air in the background. That committed white man is a hero. Do they not re-up water on TP sets? I love it.
5. Jasmine (the other main character, played by Bresha Webb, bless he heart) was THE worst lawyer of all time. This nigga tried to reshape legal proceedings IN THE MOMENT. Let that sink in. IN THE MOMENT. After BOTH sides rested their cases, she attempted to recall witnesses. Why? Because she is a quitter and finally got a backbone and should have done it before. That was her actual reasoning. And then when the judge was like, “Naw bih,” she was like, “I WAS TOLD BY APPLECARE!” And because it’s a TP movie, I was waiting for the judge to be like, “Well since you insist.” Nigga, my cousin Vinny got held in contempt for less. I hope you see what I did there.
6. We all know the wigs are trash. At this point, I’m convinced TP is simply trolling us with his whole heart.
7. Nigga, I DID NOT see a basement full of chained, imprisoned old white women (and some oddly young black women) coming. And youse a whole lie if you say you did. That shit was a bigger plot twist than Phylicia Rashad being “ASHTRAY, BITCH!”’s momma.
8. “ASHTRAY, BITCH!” literally made me rise up off of my couch and say, “Holy shit, I think I’m enjoying this movie.” I’ve been trying to work that into conversations for days now.
9. It makes sense that Jasmine is a trash lawyer because her boo-thang, Jordan (Matthew Law), is a Trash Cop. This Lawsuit-Waiting-to Happen-Ass-Negro handcuffed TWO separate niggas and basically said, “Aight, you cuffed. Now I’m gonna go to the store right quick...don’t move. You promise not to move? You promised, so if you move it’s on you.” Phylicia Rashad’s character walked clean out the house into a new life of the same old crime.
10. The internet must not exist in this world. You’re telling me this woman who has a whole HISTORY of shaking down older women, violently, with her son whose face showed up in an article on the Trash Cop’s police car computer would be able to keep this swindle up consistently? Nobody does background checks anymore? She had a new name, but I’m guessing the news and the internet would have her all over it if you work in a place that deals with older women. Not in this world, though. Sarah (Phylicia Rashad) ran up out the house in handcuffs—which apparently nobody noticed on the street—to a new town to run the same swindle.
11. When Sarah hit Trash Cop with a skillet to slow him down, but didn’t, and then doubled down by throwing a bag of groceries at him, I decided, then and there, that everybody should watch this movie. This character was unable to stop somebody with a skillet but thought a loaf of bread might work. That’s some high-quality mental shenanigans right there.
12. There’s more but I’ll stop there. Listen, it wasn’t a good movie. It was a ridiculous movie. It was an entertaining movie. So was Bad Boys For Life. I was highly entertained and it was a pleasant surprise because it could have been a terrible, terrible movie like Temptation or Acrimony. TP made a non-spoof spoof comedy psychological thriller with bad wigs that kept leveling up the shenanigans all the way until the end. TP makes bad movies. This was one, but it was also entertaining as shit and that’s largely what I want out of most of the shit I watch on Netflix in my “Popular on Netflix” list that is remarkably full of black movies.