Another year has gone by and yet another Tyler Perry directed comedy/social commentary has graced the theaters (yet another one to use Madea as a main character). The movie, of course, starred Perry himself as Madea (as well as her brother Joe and Joe’s son Brian). Likewise, the movie also starred Eugene Levy as the man who was forced to go in to witness protection with Denise Richards as his wife, Doris Roberts as his mother and both Devan Leos and Danielle Campbell as his two children. Also, the movie featured Romeo Miller as Jake Nelson and John Amos as his father (with a memorable cameo from Tom Arnold).
That being said, the movie began with Levy’s character (the nerdy patriarch of a rich dysfunctional family) discovering that he was being used by his investment firm as the fall guy for a Ponzi scheme. In addition, he was unknowingly being used to launder money for the Malone crime family. This led to him being arrested and then being sent off to witness protection with his wife, mother, and two children. This was at Madea’s house. Meanwhile, a young kid who had tried to rob Madea was only doing so after the firm that Levy’s character was working at scammed the church that he was put in charge of the funds for (as one of the twelve legit charities). Over time, both storylines converge. And over time, the problems of both sets of characters would be fixed thanks, in large part, to the efforts of Madea and (to a much lesser extent) Joe.
This movie, in itself, was supposed to be the first straight comedy that Tyler Perry had made. But the only problem was that I felt the comedy was a little uneven. Don’t get me wrong. There were some absolutely hilarious parts (such as Denise Richards’ Madea impression). And Tom Arnold’s cameo was brilliant. But the only problem was that the movie just wasn’t consistently funny enough. And it didn’t help that the acting was a bit off. Eugene Levy did an amazing job, but didn’t really get enough to work with (he really was the best thing about a lot of Christopher Guest’s movies and even the American Pie series, especially the straight to video ones). Romeo Miller and Doris Roberts each did decent jobs themselves. Though, I felt most of the actors (including Tyler Perry) were basically phoning in their performance. Also, I felt some of the writing was a bit heavy handed. In the past his films had a bit of cleverness with how their preached the moral element of the story (which he still showed brilliantly at times in here), but there were times where it just felt like it was being shoved down my throat. This problem, no doubt, affected the uneven writing.
That being said, I did enjoy this movie to a certain extent. But it’s nowhere near being a great film, due to the humor sometimes being drowned out by the problems that plagued the movie. I give it three out of five stars (I know, my first rating).