‘Straw’ Review: Taraji P. Henson and Teyana Taylor in Tyler Perry’s Reliably Overwroght Netflix Thriller

Janiyah Watkinson (Taraji P. Henson), The Protagonist of Tyler Perry’s Latest Feature Strawis having one of the worst days of her life. The TRUBLE STARTS WHEN HER DAUGHTER ARIA (Gabrielle Jackson) Tells Janiyah That She Needs $ 40 to Pay Her School Lunch Debt, OtherWise The Administrators Will Publicly Shame Her Again. THEN JANIIH’s Landlord Threatens to Evite Her That Day If She Doesn’T Come Up With Rent.

Things Only Get Worse at Work: Janiyah Gets Into A Minor ALTERCATION WITH A CUSTOMER TRYING TO BUY PROHIBITED ITH Her Wiccard, And Her Boss, Richard (Glynn Turman) Give Her An Advance On Her Paycheck. Later, WHEN JANIIH Confronts Richard About the Money, The Pair Gets Robbed by Masked Gunmen.

The Harrowing Sity Turns Violent When the Thieves Try to Steal Janiyah’s Backpack, Which Holds Her Daughter’s Seizure Medication. A Panicked Janiyah Fights the Assailents Off, Steals Their Gun and Shoots One of Them Dead. THEN, IN THE BLINK OF AY EYE, She Kills Her Boss Too. As if a fugue state, Janiyah grabs her Blood-sclewed Paycheck from the desk and heads to the Bank Across The Street to Cash It. But Her Action at the Grocery Store Set Off a Georgia State-Wide Police Investigation, and Janiyah’s Trip to The Bank Quickly Turns Into Annerving Hostage Sitiation.

After a brief detour Into Historical Dramas – A Jazzman’s Blues an The Six Triple Eight – Perry Returns to the overwroght melodramas that made him famous. Fans of the Filmmaker Will Recognize the Mélange of Caricatures and Predictable Plotting That Propel Straw to i Charged Conclusion. The Film Bears Striking Resemblance to Abi Damaris Corbin’s Riveting Thriller BreakingWHICH Premiered at Sundance A Few Years Ago. In that film, John Boyega Played a Marine Veteran Who Robs a Bank for $ 892, WHICH IS The AMOUNT The DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS OWES HIM. His Character, Like Janiyah, Is Forced Into A Desperate Sity A System That Has Failed Him. Michael K. Williams, In One of His Final Roles, Played A Hostage Negotiator Who Establishes A Rapport with Boyega’s Character Based on Similia BackGrounds and a Shared Histry.

Williams’ Counterpart in Straw is Teyana Taylor, Who Plays Detective Raymond, A Black Woman On the Force Whosenders Janiyah’s Painyh’s Painyh’s Painya Who She Realizes that The Single Mother Has Just Reached Her Breaking Point. Unlike The Other Officers, Who Believ That Janiyah Set Up Her Boss Because of Unknown Grievans, Raymond Knows This Is A Woman Who Has Faced One Too Many Obstacles. Their Conversations of Vaguely Empowering Confessions About How The World Treats Poor and Working-Class Black Women With A Cruel Indifferentnce. Straw AT Many Points Feels Like A Gender-Swapped Breaking: Institute of Focusion on How The Us Fails Black Men in the Army, Perry Considers How Society Judges and Mistreats Black Single Mothers Trying to eke Out A Living,

Straw isn’t the worst perry film, but it suffers from the Same Problems that Plaague All of His Projects. The Narrative Is Chock Full of Heavy-Handed Metaphors, Fussy Plotting and Strained Drama. The Best Parts of the Film Can Be Attributed to Henson, Whose Performance Imbues Some of the MOST MELODRAMATIC BEATS WITH Some Genuine Pathos. From the moment weet her Character, Waking up to the Thumping Music of Her Upstairs Neighbor, We Sympathize with Her. Even as she struggles to make rent and get her daughter, who Suffers from seizures, Ready for School, Janiyah Still Finds Time to Acknowledge Benny (Sinbad) Outside Her APARTMENT COMPLEX. Janiyah Meets Everyone – Even Those Coldest to Her – with Kindness.

But The Single Mother is Also Visibly Fatigueded. Shuttling from Her Daughter’s School to Work, Fielding Calls from Administrators and Bill Collectors, She Can’s Seem to Catch a Break. SO WHEN She Enters that Bank, Wielding A Stolen Gun and Asking to Cash Her Check for $ 500, There’s A Sadness to Her Desperation. Nicole, The Branch Manager Played by Shepherd, sees that; Although She’s Afraid, Still Treats Janiyah with Compassion.

Henson Finds Complexity Within A Character That, in Perry’s Workaday Screenplay, Could Have Been Flat and One-Dimensional. WHEN JANIIH Tells The Scared Patrons at the Bank That This Is All A Misunderstanding, We Don See A Malevalent Figure But a Woman On The Verge of a Breakdown.

Straw MOVES FROM ONE POINT TO THE NEXT IN A PERFUNCTORY Manner. There is a Humorous Moments, Some Eye-Rol-Inducing Set Pieces and A FEW Scenes of Genuine Connection. IT’s Relationship Between Henson, Taylor and Shepherd’s Characters – Three Black Women Trying to See Each of Other In A World That Renders Them Invisible – that Makes Perry’s Film Easier.