Product Description
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Madea, everyone’s favorite wise-cracking, take-no-prisoners
grandma, jumps into action when her niece, Shirley, receives
distressing news about her . All Shirley wants is to gather
her three adult children around her and share the news as a
family. But Tammy, Kimberly and Byron are too distracted by their
own problems: Tammy can’t manage her unruly children or her
broken marriage; Kimberly is gripped with anger and takes it out
on her husband; and Byron, after spending two years in jail, is
under pressure to deal drugs again. It’s up to Madea, with the
help of the equally rambunctious Aunt Bam, to gather the clan
together and make things right the only way she knows how: with a
lot of tough love, laughter…and the revelation of a long-buried
family secret.
.com
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Tyler Perry's entertainment empire continues its long march
toward ubiquity with another installment chronicling the
slapstick soap opera lives of the squabbling Simmons/Brown
family. For Perry fans, who are legion, the fact that his output
of movie and TV projects keeps growing larger than the bust lines
of his matriarchal characters is nothing but good news. And
Madea's Big Happy Family will certainly be the crowd-pleasingly
funny, moralistic piece of uplifting fluff that they have every
right to expect from the multi-hyphenated man on the throne.
Based on one of his popular road show plays (as were many of his
other movies), this one features as big and juicy a role for his
in-drag alter ego as any. The pistol-packing, vitriol-spewing
Madea steals the show all over the place, whether she's raging
with one-liner insults, babbling down-home homilies,
sweet-talking, or slapping someone silly. Perry also gives
himself even more in-character fun playing crotchety old Uncle
Joe, who has some choice observations about the obesity that's on
display among more than half the cast. The story centers on
Madea's niece Shirley (Loretta Devine, giving the only
performance that's anywhere near understated), who is quickly
succumbing to cancer, but resigned that it's God's will, and is
OK with it because she'll soon be going home to Jesus. Her dying
wish is to gather her loved ones to break the news, a task that
proves nearly impossible given how fractious every single
relationship is involving the lives of her children and extended
family. Yes, the family is certainly big--but happy?--not so
much. Swooping down on them in her bouncing boat of a broken-down
Cadillac, Madea orders them together and orchestrates the many
revelatory or shocking crises and catharses that finally bring
some closure to the bickering. It's done in typical Tyler Perry
fashion with bursts of pop-Christian and pop-psychological
moralizing filtered straight outta Madea's motor-mouth and
standup comic delivery. The men fare better than the women in
Perry's philosophical, literary, and directorial intention.
Without exception, the young female characters are portrayed as
horrible shrews, and their men burdened providers who require the
backhanded wisdom of Madea to set everyone straight. In his own
performance and in the funny, sad, or inspirational messages
laced throughout, Perry is playing to his core demographic to
great effect. Though unremarkable in its stylistic and technical
specifications, Madea's Big Happy Family has all the right stuff
to fill the hearts and souls of all those who appreciate his very
specific brand of ethnic family values. And that seems to be a
group that grows with every project bearing his imprimatur. --Ted
Fry