It’s easy to dismiss Tyler Perry’s movies as cheap and preachy, but
they need to be viewed in a full audience to be appreciated. Seeing
Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail revives a sense of film-going
as a social experience. He deals with relationships in spiritual and
broadly comedic terms, and audiences are invited to respond by laughing
and gasping, and cheering on Perry’s in-drag performance as gun-toting
grandma Madea.
The secret is that Perry (whose films are based on his stage plays)
tells personally observed stories about American community. And his
films are steadily improving. Madea Goes to Jail still looks
shoddy and is full of cheap tactics, but it succeeds by being Perry’s
most emotional film. The jokes are more grand and better timed, and the
sad moments don’t shy away from making hardship felt.
For a while, the serious side is strong enough that Madea is
unnecessary comic relief. Lawyer Joshua Hardaway (Derek Luke) is having
trouble with his fiance Linda (Ion Overman), who is distraught by his
charity for childhood friend Candace (The Cosby Show‘s Keshia
Knight Pulliam), now living as a drug-addicted prostitute. There’s
open-mindedness in Joshua and Candace’s relationship. Perry shows
concern for Candace, rather than chastising her. It’s brave how the
film takes her as a worthy candidate for Joshua’s heart. Fake solutions
often abound: promoting Christianity as a cure for prostitution is
irresponsible.
Madea takes over in the film’s last half, which could be titled
Madea Goes Crazy. In exploring the old woman’s rage issues,
Perry lays down a particular code of ethics. The antagonistic white
supporting characters are just exaggerated effect: The most memorable
scene has Madea destroying the car of a woman who stole her parking
spot at a grocery store. If anything, Perry has made a movie about the
line separating personal law from the real law. In its crude manner,
it’s about social understanding and individual acceptance.
For showtimes, see Movie Times, page 18. I fought the
law, and palermo@thecoast.ca won.
This article appears in Feb 26 – Mar 4, 2009.
