Madea's Witness Protection

1/4

Starring: Tyler Perry, Eugene Levy, Denise Richards, Romeo, Doris Roberts, Danielle Campbell, Devan Leos

Rated PG-13 for Some Crude Sexual Remarks and Brief Drug References

Apologies to Larry the Cable Guy, but Tyler Perry's new movie should be called "Witless Protection."  Apart from two or three funny scenes, this movie is a trial.  It's tedious, badly acted and rushed.  Like Wes Anderson, Tyler Perry is hugely popular, but I guess I'm not a member of his audience either.

George Needleman (Levy) is living the high life.  He's very wealthy, just got a huge sudden promotion and has a beautiful wife, Kate (Richards).  Unfortunately, his company is a Ponzi scheme, and the reason why he was suddenly promoted to CFO is because he's a doormat and intended to be the fall guy.  The company laundered money for the mob, and George has to go with his family into Witness Protection.  Because the mob knows the government's Witness Protection hideouts, US Prosecutor Brian (Perry) has to find a place for them to hide out.  His idea is to stick them with his politically incorrect aunt, Madea (Perry).  Now the tough talking Madea is about to do some house cleaning with the Needlemans, since George is a doormat, Kate is a pushover when it comes to her stepdaughter Cindy (Campbell) and Wally (Leos) can't play baseball.

Not only is this movie unfunny, it's sloppily written.  Subplots are left unfinished, characters are left hanging and the plot sermonizes.  Quite frankly, the film is centered around Madea, a caricature who gets old after, oh, 15 minutes.

Eugene Levy is a funny man.  He's funny because he's so innocent in the most alarming of circumstances.  See him in the "American Pie" movies for an example.  But here he's given so little to work with that there's little that he can do.  Levy gives it a game try, but it rarely works.  Denise Richards is okay, but she's mainly just a cute face (why a girl as hot as Richards would ever go after a guy like Levy without dollar signs in her eyes is left unexplained).  Doris Roberts is surprisingly boring as the demented mother Barbara.

The real fault is Tyler Perry.  He wears four hats for this movie, and he's only good at one: the producer.  He knows his target audience and goes after them effectively.  But I wish that his film was worth all the buzz. It's badly written, directed and acted on his part.  He plays three roles: Madea, who is annoying, Brian, who fades into the background, and Madea's randy husband Joe who is also a non-entity.

There are some humorous sequences, such as when Madea tries to wake up her guests.  But that's it really.  Everything else is trash.

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