Tyler Perry’s ‘Straw’ stands with stressed-out single mothers everywhere

“Straw” — 2 stars

Few filmmakers portray the Black American experience with so much heart and so little finesse as Tyler Perry. Doesn’t matter if his movies aren’t art — they reach an audience whether they’re comedies (his Madea movies), middle-class melodramas or period pieces like 2024’s World War II-era “The Six Triple Eight.” That last was a high point in a career of directing nearly 30 movies in 20 years, not counting Perry’s many TV shows and stage plays — a run of inspired workaholism that has made the writer-director one of the most financially successful filmmakers of his generation.

Streaming on Netflix, “Straw” is Perry’s version of “Dog Day Afternoon.” Anchored by a heroic if undisciplined lead performance by Taraji P. Henson (“Hidden Figures,” TV’s “Empire”), it finds solidarity with every overworked, underpaid, stressed-out single mother in a coldhearted America, even those who don’t go to the extreme of shooting their boss and robbing a bank.

Technically speaking, Janiyah Wiltkinson isn’t robbing a bank. A supermarket checkout clerk having the worst day ever, she just wants her paycheck cashed and happens to have a gun in her hand, prompting the teller (Ashley Versher) to panic and hit the silent alarm. Before that, we’ve looked on as Janiyah has gotten evicted from her apartment, been a victim of road rage from a psycho off-duty cop (Tilky Jones), had her car impounded, lost her job, seen her sick daughter (Gabby Jackson) taken away by social services and had her workplace robbed by gunmen with unexpected results. The teller pushing all the money in the bank at Janiyah instead of the $521 she’s due is merely the final straw from which the movie takes its title.

“Straw” has a bone-deep empathy for the struggles of those living below the poverty line or just keeping their chins above it. While Perry sets up a familiar scenario, with an army of police outside the bank and a handful of hostages inside, the movie is really about Black women bonding across boundaries of class, profession and the law. The bank manager, Nicole (Sherri Shepherd), is well aware of how hard she’s worked to get to where she is and how much responsibility she has to help the people in her community. The hostage negotiator on the phone, Detective Kay Raymond (Teyana Taylor, a little too glam for the role), is a single mother who gives Janiyah the benefit of the doubt when her partner (Mike Merrill), her chief (Rockmond Dunbar) and a racist FBI agent (Derek Phillips) are all urging her to shoot first and ask questions later.

When one of the other tellers (Shalèt Monique) starts livestreaming from inside the bank and Janiyah’s Job-like litany of woes goes out on the local news, “Straw” brings in a supportive mob chanting for her freedom from behind the police line. Even some of the other hostages take her side, including a woman (Diva Tyler) who serves as Perry’s wise elder, schooling the callow younger characters in the hardships of life. It’s a cheering development in the midst of looming disaster, and what suspense there is comes from the fear that Janiyah — and maybe the others — won’t get out of it alive.

“Straw” plays fast and loose with that fear in a wholly unnecessary penultimate scene, but it’s already tripped over its own feet with a final-act twist that is simply one too many — one more piano falling on poor Janiyah’s head after the whole orchestra has come crashing down. To her credit, Henson plays her role without false ennobling: Janiyah is a believable mess, a woman barely clinging to the bottom rung of the working class, and the movie is smart enough to hint at an entire system that keeps the Janiyahs of America running frantically in place.

Perry’s not quite brave enough to tackle that system head-on, though, and he stands back while his star’s performance turns chaotic and screechy — a big, heartfelt turn that could have used a lot more guidance. Likewise, “Straw” has all the feels it wants and little of the art it needs. But there’s nothing to suggest Tyler Perry would have it any other way.

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Streaming on Netflix. Unrated but contains language and potential violence. 105 minutes.