Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail

Last year when I started renting and watching the DVDs that had come out during the first part of 2008, I found myself asking: Who is this guy Tyler Perry? I'd never heard his name before, but I quickly learned that he was an African-American film writer and director who had the habit of placing his name in the title of all his productions.

It was sort of off-putting, but when I rented Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns from Redbox, I found myself liking it OK. It was a simple romantic comedy about a single mother from Chicago meeting her long lost family in Atlanta. It was a little rough around the edges for a romantic comedy, but not a disaster.

But cripes, I said, what the hell was it with the Madea character in the movie? It seems that one of Perry's favorite gags is to appear in his own movies in elderly drag, as a superfeisty old black woman who causes no end of grief to those around her, especially her family members. It felt revolting and embarassing to see him appear this way in Meet the Browns, ruining, I thought, what was otherwise a nice little picture.

Fortunately Perry's follow-up last September, Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys, was a more serious drama. It had Kathy Bates in a supporting role, which gave the film more than a little a touch of class. I was impressed, and began to think that Perry was emerging as a mature storyteller. If nothing else, he churns out the narrative. It goes without saying that in The Family That Preys, there was no place for the slapstick of Madea. I thought maybe it was a phase which he had grown out of.

Well, I was sure wrong. For his first film of 2009, Perry gives us Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail, which puts the cantankerous character in the title role this time. I was looking forward to seeing this movie about as much as taking a cross-country red-eye flight crammed in the middle seat between two overweight snorers.

Thankfully I was pleasantly surprised by the movie. First off, there is less Madea in it than the title suggests. Moreover, it is really two different movies, a serious one and a slapstick one, that are only loosely connected within the same filmspace. Perry was wise in this respect, because an entire Madea movie would have come off way too lowbrow, with obvious comparisons to Ernest Goes to Jail (1990). Instead he gets to have his cake and eat it too.

The "serious" movie is about a young assistant d.a. in Atlanta (Derek Luke) who, in the midst of prosecuting his cases, discovers that his long-lost childhood female friend (a grown-up Keshia Knight Pulliam, from The Cosby Show) has become a heroin-addicted prostitute. Over the protests of his fiance, who is also an assistant d.a., he resolves to help his friend get off the streets. Eventually we learn why he is so motivated to help her. By doing so, he comes to question his own relationship with his fiance, and his true goals in life.

It's not a bad story, not quite as deep and fully-formed as The Family That Preys, but still a fresh and interesting tale. I had only a few minor quibbles with it, specifically the method by which the protagonist publicly exposes the treachery of his fiance at their wedding---not very classy, if you ask me. That scene could have used a rewrite to give the protagonist a little bit more honor.

To my surprise, I wound up actually enjoying the Madea part, perhaps because it occupied only a minority of the film time. The Dr. Phil cameo was a bit too much camp for me (although the audience last Sunday in Leominster sure loved it), but other than that, I almost found myself becoming a Madea fan.

I still think that Perry is ultimately going to have to make a choice: is he going to be a serious, respected film maker, or is he going to be a slapstick comedian doing a drag bit? Despite having enjoyed Madea, I wouldn't mind at all if this was the last we see of her. Perry has a talent for storytelling, and for churning out interesting dramas that are watchable and pertinent. I hope he chooses that path.