Movie Review: Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail

As long as Madea, the primly old-fashioned yet fearlessly badass matriarch, is shooting off her machine-gun mouth, Tyler Perry’s latest soul operetta lives up to the mischief promised by its title. But that isn’t nearly enough of the time. Most of Madea Goes to Jail is devoted to the weary, mirthless saga of an attorney (Derek Luke) out to save a former college chum who is now a prostitute (Keshia Knight Pulliam, all grown up from The Cosby Show) as he swats away the objections of his upscale fiancée (Ion Overman). It’s a tale soggy with the kind of race/class lessons that Madea, the director-star’s battle-ax alter ego, doles out far more handily (and entertainingly) in a single church-lady-from-hell zinger.

Writer-director Tyler Perry sticks closely to the formula that has served him well so far in “Madea Goes to Jail,” the latest bigscreen dramedy based on one of his popular stage plays. But the law of diminishing returns catches up with the mega-successful multihyphenate in this wildly uneven effort, which is notably more strained and slapdash than such earlier efforts as “Madea’s Family Reunion” and “Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns.” Latest opus likely will prove a critic-proof crowdpleaser, drawing fans to megaplexes and vidstores. But it almost certainly won’t expand the crossover audience for the franchise.

Once again, Perry has concocted an ungainly mix of broad comedy, comically violent slapstick, sudsy sentimentality and aggressive spiritual uplift, racing through vertiginous mood swings and tonal shifts as characters run the gamut from smoking joints to praising Jesus, cracking heads to breaking hearts.

Also once again, Perry casts himself — in outrageous femme drag — as the blustery behemoth known as Madea, the trash-talking, quick-tempered matriarch of an extended Atlanta family. Even during her funniest moments in the preceding pics, the character has come off as almost impossibly grating. Maybe it’s a case of familiarity breeding contempt, but Madea crosses over to full-scale obnoxiousness too often here. On at least two occasions, her self-indulgent tantrums suggest the screechings of a sociopath.

For the first 70 minutes or so, “Jail” alternates between scenes of sitcom-style excess — Madea repeatedly tests the patience of loved ones, total strangers and increasingly annoyed law enforcement officials — and episodes that propel a melodramatic plot involving Joshua Hardaway (Derek Luke), an assistant district attorney who offers aid and comfort to a drug-abusing hooker and fallen-from-grace childhood friend named Candace (Keshia Knight Pulliam, all grown up since “The Cosby Show”).

Joshua’s not entirely selfless reformation project calls for close contact with Candace, which understandably upsets Linda (Ion Overman), his snooty fiancee. Unfortunately, Linda also is an assistant D.A., and a far less ethical one at that. It takes little effort on Linda’s part for Candace to wind up behind bars, right around the time Madea, arrested for her overreaction to a parking dispute, is sent to the same prison by the no-nonsense star of TV’s “Judge Mathis” (one of several real-life media and political notables making cameos).

“Madea Goes to Jail” only rarely follows through on promising setups with big laughs. The comic highlight is a sequence in which Madea proves capable of driving even the professionally compassionate Dr. Phil to the point of barely contained fury. (Very funny outtakes from this encounter are shown during the closing credits.)

At other points, however, Perry the writer-director appears to proceed on the assumption that Perry the actor need only scream, strut or swear to get big yocks. That assumption, alas, is not consistently justified.

Dramatic scenes seem even more overwrought in the context of so much over-the-top funny business. Indeed, Luke’s tearful breakdown during a scene opposite Viola Davis (well cast as a prison minister and urban outreach volunteer) elicited guffaws at a well-attended preview screening.

Perfs range from sincere to excessively cartoonish, which is par for the course in this franchise. Special effects are impressive during scenes in which Perry appears opposite himself as Madea’s pot-toking brother and/or straight-arrow lawyer nephew. Otherwise, tech values are unremarkable.

There is something both satisfying and frustrating about “Madea Goes to Jail,” which opened Friday without advance press screenings. Mr. Perry dutifully gives his audience what it wants, but you can’t help feeling that he might also have more to offer: more coherent narratives, smoother direction, better movies. Still, as long as he has Madea — a force of nature and now something of a pop-culture institution — he might not need any of that.

Genre: Comedy

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Movie Trailer

Movie Website: MadeaGoestoJailmovie.com

Actors/Actresses: Tyler Perry, Derek Luke, Keshia Knight Pulliam, David Mann, Tamala Mann, Ronreaco Lee, Ion Overman, Vanessa Ferlito, Viola Davis, Sophia Vergara, Robin Coleman, Bobbi Baker

Our Verdict:

Madea Goes to Jail is not about Madea. She’s a smoke screen, a lure, a wriggling worm on a hook used to trick people into sitting through yet another of Tyler Perry’s unbearable soap operas.