Movie Review: Tyler Perry's Madea's Happy Family

Tyler Perry's Madea's Happy Family (2011) 

Directed Tyler Perry

Written by Tyler Perry

Starring Tyler Perry, Loretta Devine, Bow Wow, Tamala Mann, Isaiah Mustafa, Natalie Desselle 

Release Date April 22nd, 2011

Published April 23rd, 2011

Tyler Perry is the singularly most puzzling filmmaker on the planet. In the same film he can deliver a searing message about social ills and dress as a woman who carries a gun, talks like a gangsta and doesn't mind a little weed smoke. That jarring combination made Perry's debut feature, "Diary of A Mad Black Woman," arguably the most schizophrenic moviegoing experience of my life.

In 'Diary' Kimberly Elise delivers a powerhouse performance as an abused wife who finally takes control of her life. The film takes a disturbingly up close view of this abuse and Elise humanizes the suffering in an Oscar worthy performance. And then Perry, dressed in drag as Madea, enters the scene with a chainsaw and like some meta demon begins to almost literally cut the movie to pieces.

Like a Circus interrupting a funeral procession

The same other-worldly shifts in tone plagued Perry's well-meaning "Madea's Family Reunion," "I Can Do Bad All By Myself" and "Madea Goes to Jail." Each film features moments of raw, honest social commentary and each are then blown apart by Perry's insistence on donning a dress and providing clown-like comic relief. Madea enters each of these movies like a circus interrupting a funeral procession.

The Madea issue is slightly less pronounced in Perry's latest feature, "Madea's Big Happy Family." Madea and fellow clown-like, broad stroke characters Uncle Joe (Also played by Perry) and Mr. Brown (David Mann), who even dresses the part of a clown, enter the fray early and often in "Big Happy Family" and never allow the drama of the A story, that of a family falling apart as the matriarch prepares to pass away, to take hold.

Strength in faith

Loretta Devine is Shirley, a long suffering niece of Perry's Madea Simmons, who has just been informed that her cancer has recurred and their is little that can be done. Finding strength in her faith; Shirley has just one wish left before she's ready to join Jesus. Shirley wants one last dinner with her family so that she can tell them all at once that she doesn't have much time left.

This wish is much more complicated than it sounds as each member of the family is consumed with their own baggage. Shirley's youngest, Byron (Rapper Bow Wow) is struggling with a past arrest and an unplanned pregnancy with a nightmare baby mama (Lauren London) and a new girlfriend (Teyana Taylor) who is pushing him to get back into drug dealing.

Henpecked husbands

Shirley's daughter Kimberly (Shannon Kane) has nearly cut all ties with her family in order to establish a suburban, buppy (Black Urban Professional) lifestyle with her henpecked husband Calvin (Isaiah Mustafa) and their son. Kimberly and Calvin have the best dramatic arc of any of the characters in "Big Happy Family" but like all drama in the film, the arc gets truncated by Perry's big top act of Madea, Brown and their daughter Cora (Tamela J. Mann).

Madea's not all bad

Natalie Desselle and comedian Rodney Perry round out the cast of "Big Happy Family" as Shirley's oldest daughter and her henpecked hubby. One must wonder what Shirley had done to the girls' father in order for both women to turn out so horrible to their husbands but that is a subject for a more thorough and thoughtful movie than "Big Happy Family" which is more at home with Madea kicking butt than it is with Shirley's harrowing family life.

There is no denying that Madea can be funny and even, on rare occasions, insightful. There are moments in "Big Happy Family" when Madea's force of nature feels necessary to the plot and even helpful as she/he provides comic relief and a needed swat on the backside of these often troubling characters.

Special guest Maury Povich

Those moments, sadly, are all too rare as the film is padded out to feature length with fat jokes, choke-a-ho jokes and an odd extended public service announcement about the plague of diabetes in African Americans and the need for colonoscopies. There is also an entirely unnecessary arch comic cameo by Maury Povich and his dark comic DNA testing episodes.

In the end, despite honest moments of moving drama from Loretta Devine, Shannon Kane and Isaiah Mustafa, "Madea's Big Happy Family" is mostly a bad movie. It's not funny enough to be a good comedy and their is too much (literal) clowning around going on to allow the drama to resonate. Perry's direction is stilted and, as with each of his previous films, lacks style. In essence, "Madea's Big Happy Family" is typical Tyler Perry.