Madea Goes to Jail

I guess I should start off by admitting that I've never seen any of the previous Madea films, and that I went into this movie knowing nothing about it except that it's the latest in a long line of similar films which have gotten about the same public response as your average Steven Seagal movie. And that's not good, in case you're wondering. That's okay though, because during the opening credits we see various headlines zooming across the screen, like "Super-Sized Stripper Smacks Spectator," and we get the general idea. Madea has always been a problem for the police, she has a rap sheet a mile long and doesn't feel any need to change her behavior.

The movie comes dangerously close to being another one of those intolerable comedies where Eddie Murphy or Martin Lawrence star as every character in the movie. Madea's family are clearly meant to resemble the Klumps, although I would be lying if I said that they were not entertaining. Uncle Joe in particular is a goofy caricature, but he's a hilarious one.

The problem with the movie is that it tries to be two very different kinds of films, and it succeeds in being those two kinds of films, but the combination of the two styles kills this one completely. Half the movie is a light-hearted comedy in the vein of the Nutty Professors and Big Momma's House, but the other half of the film is a very serious drama that deals effectively with very serious issues. Life Is Beautiful is the only movie I've ever seen that really succeeds brilliantly at this story-telling technique, but that movie worked because it tied the two genres together. Life also comes close. This one, on the other hand, just throws the two halves in the same room and then sits back while they sit there not working.

Dr. Phil makes a surprisingly hilarious cameo as a therapist that tries in vain to get Madae to admit that she has an anger management problem, which ultimately lands her in jail. Meanwhile, Josh Hardaway, the Assistant District Attorney, is experiencing a wonderfully developing career, until he meets Candace, a childhood friend who has fallen into a desperate situation after years of drugs and prostitution. He tries as hard as he can to help her despite the hysterical and ridiculous whining of his horrid fiancé.

This is one of the worst parts of the movie, by the way. There is nothing worse than a romantic comedy that pits two suitors (male or female) against each other for the love of the main character, when one of the suitors is clearly tailor made to be the right choice and the other is an intolerable jerk-off. See 27 Dresses and you'll know what I mean. Josh's fiancé in this movie is unfortunately such a nagging, conniving wench that it's impossible to have any feelings towards her other than animosity. This is not a good start for a movie whose story is driven by the characters. Almost from the moment she enters the movie I was just waiting for Josh to come to his senses and boot her to the curb where she belongs.

The issues of prostitution and drugs and drugs are taken very seriously, there's even a pretty intensely emotional scene involving one of the key male characters, who breaks down completely under the weight of a tragic event for which he has never been able to forgive himself. The acting is superb in this scene, but it is genuinely bizarre when Madea shows up again and we realize what the rest of the movie is like.

It's impossible to tell if this is supposed to be a comedy or a drama, because both elements are done fairly well but they simply don't work when put together. I don't need my movies to be categorized, in fact I am pleasantly surprised when films cleverly bend genres, but this one gives us one character with a truly frightening history of drugs and prostitution and another character who lifts a car up on giant forklifts and then drops it 30 feet onto the pavement when a callous owner steals her spot at K-Mart.

Ultimately Madea and Candace get locked up in the same prison, and the two stories attempt in vain to come together. I won't say that all of the character are utterly uninteresting, although there are several points where a stupendous lack of screen writing ability is made abundantly clear. Consider this exchange between Candace and her new cell-mate, who happens to be one of her old, close friends –

Candace: "You look good." Cellmate: "Yeah, I'm doin' good. How you doin'?"

Are you serious? I'm doin' good? How you doin'? Is this an inside joke? You're both in prison! Who says they're doin' good or asks someone else how they're doin' when both of them are in prison?

But maybe I'm nitpicking. There are moments of fun in the movie, there are a few laugh out loud moments, and there are some moments of pretty impressive acting, but the movie as a whole, unfortunately, adds up to something much, much less than the sum of its parts.

Tyler Perry has really outdone himself this time, making the deep artistic statement "I'm black, and I have a fatsuit." Sure, this statement has been made before by Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, and others, but Perry adds a certain panache to the blackness and the fat suit that makes this more than just a movie about a black guy in a fat suit: it is THE movie about a black guy in a fat suit.

There may be other movies out there which you are tempted to see: "Slumdog Millionaire" may have won several acadmey awards, but where's the black guy in the fatsuit? How is that a movie? Tyler Perry continues to push the boundaries of artistic excellence with drag AND a fat suit, and we can only hope some day he decides to throw bad accents and white face into the mix.

I hadn't seen any of Tyler Perry's films before this one because I don't find drag comedy appealing. I didn't expect this to be a great film, but it was much worse than I could have imagined. The main reason is Madea herself. Madea is a rude, hostile, Ghetto cliché of a woman who as the opening credits demonstrated, has spent most of her adult life in and out of jail for various offenses caused by her inability to control her anger and need for revenge. After one particular incident the elderly behemoth must finally endure the consequences and serve time. Although this did not happen until about one hour into the film, I applauded because Madea is clueless to how bad her behavior is that even a trained professional like Dr. Phil couldn't get through to her. She needed to learn that she is not above the law as a sort of comeuppance.

Another reason this film was so bad was that it would frequently shift to a secondary storyline which had nothing to do with Madea. It was something of a "Pretty Woman" premise involving a legal clerk trying to rescue a childhood friend from drugs and prostitution. Every time this happened, it was like somebody getting a remote control and changing the channel. The ending does show a common thread for these story lines but it's not enough to save this train wreck of a film.

After watching Madea, I can't understand why people enjoy Tyler Perry films so much. The Ghetto factor may be the main reason people line up and pay good money to see this garbage. If that's the case, it's very sad that this is what 21st century America considers entertainment. I would have given this a minus rating if IMDb allowed it.

I found this movie to be lacking severely in plot structure and and in character development. There are many times when the director's attempts to be funny overshadow any chance there may be for character growth. A lot of the acting was wooden and there were many clichés thrown in there that the director was hoping no one would catch onto. The ending was especially horrendous as it appears the director could not come up with anything else so just made something up.

There were two highlights: Viola Davis' role in the film and when the lights came on in the theater and we were allowed to leave. Other than that I wouldn't want to see it again.

I scratched my head through most of this movie and remain quite bewildered by it now that I've seen the whole thing. What's with the title? Madea (one of those man playing a woman characters) is really only about half of the movie, the half that deals with Madea is silly at best and irritating at worst, and she only goes to jail for about the last 20 minutes. So what's with "Madea Goes To Jail" as if that's the focal point of the story?

The real meat of the story revolves around the relationship between Joshua (Derek Luke) and Candi (Keshia Knight Pulliam.) Joshua is a DA who rose from the wrong side of the tracks and is now engaged to Linda (Ion Overman) - another DA and something of a "princess" - as she's repeatedly called. Candi, meanwhile, is a prostitute who grew up with Joshua and who reconnects with him. Joshua has a need to help her out of her situation. Something happened between the two years ago that makes Joshua feel responsible for Candi, but it takes a while for that to come out. This story is the "meat" of the movie, far more central than the Madea storyline, and not really related to it in any meaningful way. The Candi story is a heavy one: prostitution, drugs, jail, rape. For a comedy this is actually pretty dark most of the way through. Madea, I guess, is supposed to provide the comedy, but aside from a handful of scenes doesn't really accomplish that. There's a bizarre focus on religion throughout this, highlighted by a decent enough turn by Viola Davis as an unorthodox minister reaching out to the local streetwalkers. Even Dr. Phil appears in this. The exchange between him and Madea was cute for a while, but got tired very fast, and why it was deemed necessary to have yet another portrayal of a Madea/Dr. Phil session run during the closing credits is one of those mysteries no one will ever be able to explain.

If this had just focused on the Joshua/Candi story it would have made for some pretty good material and a pretty powerful movie. Unfortunately, the nonsense surrounding the Madea material drags everything else about this movie down. This is basically a poorly put together and overall unappealing movie. (3/10)