Even diehard fans of the tireless Tyler Perry sometimes wish he'd slow down a bit to focus on quality over quantity. But Netflix feature "Straw" has a cultural pulse-taking urgency that lifts it above his usual run of comedies and melodramatic potboilers,

Sherri Shepherd also stars in this feature about a single mother who gets caught up in a robbery scheme while caring for her sick daughter.

As bad as it is, there’s always someone doin’ it worse!” That’s just one of the pearls of wisdom dropped in Straw (now streaming on Netflix), an effectively tense action-melodrama set during a particularly rotten day in which a hard-working woman who only wants to take care of her daughter finally snaps.