Review of Madea Goes to Jail (2009) by Keith C — 06 Jan 2012

The big problem with "Madea Goes to Jail" is actually the bigger problem with Tyler Perry, an astute documentarian of African-American humor and serviceable director who, with this film, demonstrates a complete lack of ambition in doing anything beyond what he's been doing. With the dollars coming in and big-name stars lining up to appear in his films, Perry seems perfectly content in making what is essentially the same film over and over again. The shame in this is the fact that he seems capable of much more.

"Madea Goes to Jail" does almost exactly what every Tyler Perry film does. Scenes of the notorious grandma (the only scenes you really WANT to see...just admit it!) are treated as the secondary story and intercut with a main plot that almost always focuses on some type of soapy domestic abuse situation. There's always a wedding, and the wedding never goes as planned because Perry can't pass on an opportunity to go for the full-tilt drama of a room full of people reacting to a wedding broken off right at the altar.

Mixed in with this formula is Perry's standard of having characters invoke God in conversation while few truly live a life that reflects God's true guidance. Not that this isn't the struggle for all of us, and not that the Madea character doesn't exploit this theme to great comedic effect.

I am actually frustrated by Perry's contentment in playing only to his core audience and taking past plays and productions of his and methodically transferring them to feature films purely as a money-making enterprise. These are TV movies of the week and nothing more.

The other problem I have is that although these are artistically vapid works, they are also hilarious -- mainly when Madea is around. I can quote Madea better than most GOOD movies, and I end up enjoying these films more than I have a mind to because of that character alone. That said, I rated the film for what it deserves but admit to enjoying sections of it a lot more than the rating reflects. If I had been watching this on DVD, I would have just skipped to the Madea parts.