Mischievous grandma Madea lands in jail, where she meets a variety of mixed-up characters.Mischievous grandma Madea lands in jail, where she meets a variety of mixed-up characters.Mischievous grandma Madea lands in jail, where she meets a variety of mixed-up characters.
- Awards
- 1 win & 4 nominations total
- Cora
- (as Tamela Mann)
- Judge Mathis
- (as Judge Greg Mathis)
Featured reviews
I admit it, I only laughed a couple times...but for the most part ,the humor consisted of nothing but shallow, harshly stereotypical and unclassy "jokes". Tyler Perry's portrayal of African-Americans is almost insulting. Not only that, but Madea was only shown for less than half of it! The only thing saving this from a 1 is Keisha Knight Pulliam's performance. She was the ONLY interesting thing about this crap fest. I look forward to more from her, but please, Tyler Perry, no more.
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.
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.
The scenes containing what we believe to be the main protagonist 'Madea' are an attempt at comedy that rely on spectacle and stereotype. The gags aren't executed very well at all (yet you can't blame the actors and actresses with this script) and I get the feeling that this has all been done before, recently in fact and better I might add.
Scenes containing Candi are melodramatic and actually not that bad. There is some good acting and the plot is well contrived. Some of these scenes question American class division and have a purpose.
So, bring these two elements together and you get a confused audience. The two stories have no relevance to each other until the end of the film when they 'collide'. I use collide loosely because this doesn't even happen. The characters meet and nothing much happens. I think they spoke together in about three shots.
The story itself lets the director down as well. It's easy to second guess (yet you wish you'd be proved wrong) and you wonder whether you are watching two different movies playing at once. The character of Madea is badly constructed. There is no development what-so-ever. Without giving too much away; Madea's involvement in the ending is complete nonsense. People who have seen this film will probably agree that she has no real reason to be there.
To sum up, this is the worst film I have seen in years. The director should have picked one of the stories instead of merging them in some sort of Nutty Professor meets Pretty Woman side show. Utterly ridiculous.
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.
Did you know
- TriviaThe crew was taken through a real prison tour to see what it is like. Some scenes were actually filmed in an Atlantic Penitentiary, some guards were actual prison guards.
- GoofsWhile the exact charges against Madea are not specified at the start of the movie, when she is in court all charges are dismissed due to the police not reading her "Miranda". The sole time Miranda is applicable under U.S. case law is when there is custodial interrogation by the police (questioning where the suspect is not free to leave). Any crimes the police witness they do not need to interrogate the suspect. The violation of fleeing the police is shown and battery on an officer is inferred. Miranda would not need to be read for either of these offenses to be proved, and a lack of it being read would have no bearing on the validity of the charges. If the police violate a suspect's rights by custodial interrogation without the Miranda warning, the sole penalty for the violation is the suppression of any statements made by the suspect.
- Quotes
Joe: You ain't gotta drive nowhere to get food. I know a place where you can get fed three meals a day for free.
Madea: I ain't listening to none of your crazy talk right now, Joe.
Joe: I ain't joking here, now. I know a place where you can go work, and they gonna treat you real nice, and give you three meals a day!
Madea: What the hell you talking about? Where?
Joe: Down there at the Georgia Aquarium, they had one of the whales die. You can just go on down there and swim around for a while, and they'll feed you.
[chuckles]
Madea: Just keep on laughing you rusty old bastard.
- SoundtracksAnger Management?
Written by Jay Weigel
Performed by Eklipse and the Manuel Singers
Published by MY TY PE Music Publishing (BMI)
Courtesy of Tyler Perry Studios
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail
- Filming locations
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $90,508,336
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $41,030,947
- Feb 22, 2009
- Gross worldwide
- $90,508,336
- Runtime1 hour 43 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1