Review of Madea Goes to Jail (2009) by Chads. — 20 Feb 2009

Accidents will happen. With veteran actress Kathy Bates on board, this filmmaker's approach to hodgepodge plotting and abrupt tonal shifts resulted in a moderately entertaining film that stood a fighting chance of reaching an audience beyond its fervent base.

In retrospect, "The Family That Preys" was an accident; a guilty pleasure for people who had previously thought they were immune to overwrought melodrama. This one, however, is for Madea cultists; this one is for the base.

Non-fans won't change their minds about the homegrown auteur's most polarizing character, who serves no other purpose, it seems, but to reassess such Eddie Murphy lowlights as "Norbit", and "The Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps".

To an outsider, the man occupying those frumpy frocks appears to have no comic chops whatsoever. He transforms a segment of American moviegoers into French cineastes. In "Madea Goes to Jail", as the title makes explicit, God's favorite drag queen is back, along with the ham-fisted Christian moralizing that draws a straight line between the believers and the haters.

"Madea Goes to Jail" is so unspeakably awful, to quote Elvis Costello circa "Armed Forces": "I just don't know where to begin." For starters, that cute little Rudy Huxtable from "The Cosby Show", plays a fifty-dollar hooker(Keisha Knight-Pulliam) with a grudge against her childhood friend, who let some fraternity boys gang-rape her at college(the movie is like a cross between Richard Linklater's "Tape" and the Duke men's lacrosse scandal).

It's a toss-up as to what's worse: Josh's monotonous arguments with Linda(Ion Overman) over the whiny prostitute, or his teary-eyed breakdown on a park bench. And of course, when Candace goes to jail, she just happens to share the same cell as her street-walking friend.

How absurdly convenient; it's like summer camp.