Madea Goes To Jail

Maybe Tyler Perry needs to hang up the wig.

His latest movie, Madea Goes to Jail, which is based on his hit play of the same name, is a hilarious mess that suffers from a thin script and a weak ending.

Perry has talent and ambition, both of which have led him to unparalleled success. He has built a loyal following that has catapulted his movies to box office glory and made him a name outside of the hard-to-break Hollywood movie studio system.

He, like Frank Sinatra, did it his way.

But Madea has, in many ways, become a creative crutch for Perry, a way to clumsily mix in broad humor with tear-jerker drama. It has worked in powerful ways in his previous movies, The Diary of a Mad Black Woman, and Madea's Family Reunion. And Madea is as funny as ever in Madea Goes To Jail.

But the story that surrounds Madea's antics is just not up to par. In the movie, Derek Luke portrays Joshua, a young prosecutor whose life is going smoothly. He is successful and he is about to marry another ambitious prosecutor by the name of Linda (Ion Overman).

Life is almost perfect until Candace (Keshia Knight Pulliam) shows up. Candace is a childhood friend who once had a promising future but is now addicted to drugs and working as a prostitute. Joshua is moved to help her but Linda urges Joshua to look the other way and tells him Candace and every poor person like her dug the ditch that they find themselves stuck in.

Meanwhile, Madea leads police on a car chase and then later dumps the car of a woman who stole her parking space at K-Mart. And she goes to jail (the title is indeed literal).

As is true in most Tyler Perry movies, predictability rules. You could, if you wanted to, write the script yourself. We know Madea and Candace will cross paths. We know Joshua is in love with Candace. We know Candace has a dark secret that led her on the path she is on. We know that in the end, God will fix everything if you have faith and believe and take responsibility for the choices you have made. All of these are good messages that Perry unfortunately piles on a bit too thick.

The movie is entertaining. Madea is a trip, and Perry knows what his audience wants and delivers it.

Yet as funny as Madea is, it doesn't make up for the weak script and the huge lapses in logic that you see. There's no gray in Perry's movies. The characters are either saintly good or demon-seed bad.

And no matter how awfully deep the situation, it somehow works out in the end, like the movie is a sitcom with the problem fixed in under 30 minutes. I don't mind happy endings but I do mind happy endings that aren't well-earned and lack credibility. A drama has to have some level of believability or else it doesn't move you. Or at least, it doesn't move me.

I applaud Perry for what he has been able to do in movies. I think it is important. But Perry has to do better than this. Take the wig off now, Mr. Perry.