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Madea’s Witness Protection Review

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I must start by saying that movies that have one actor playing numerous roles have the potential to be good or a flop. For instance, Austin Powers by Mike Myers – good, Madea’s Witness Protection by Tyler Perry– flop. Unfortunately, that’s not the only reason this film was sub standard in my opinion.

From the onset the acting seems a bit flat and there isn’t any real depth in the characters. There are the stereotypical characters you would expect, like the spoilt , bratty daughter, the take-no-nonsense title character Madea, the stiff, no fun accountant, the semi-senile grandmother who attempts to get a few laughs going, and a few others. None of them offer anything solid though and the moments of bad acting don’t help either. It’s surprising that the acting should be so bad considering that we have seen, and enjoyed watching Eugene Levy, Denise Richards and Tom Arnold before in various other films where they weren’t that bad. I put this lack of attention to small detail down to the fact that Tyler Perry wrote, directed, produced and acted as three characters in the film – perhaps he had a bit much on his plate to notice and attend to the bad dialogue and flat “beginner acting” tones.

The story itself centers around an accountant who is about to take the fall for his company’s mob-backed Ponzi Scheme (a fraudulent investment named after Charles Ponzi – the man who famously used the scheme in 1920, which took huge amounts of money at the time). Cue witness relocation to Madea’s southern home. She then instills rules and discipline on the family, which was evidently lacking beforehand. It’s all fairly predictable and even the parts you knew were coming never arrive with any fanfare, they come and go without much meatiness behind them. The film drags along at a slow pace looking for laughs, but the comedy lacks the oomph needed to keep an audience enthralled. Eventually the viewer is led through a sluggish ending which doesn’t hold much weight in realism and which doesn’t leave you with any real desire to come back to it again.

Having said all of that, I must say that I never watched any of the previous six Madea movies by Tyler Perry and for the franchise to have come this far it must have something to it. It grossed $65,000,000 which means that there are fans out there; maybe I’m just not one of them.
If you are a fan, head over to Ster-Kinekor at The Bridge in Port Elizabeth and catch this on the big screen, if you aren’t a fan, go anyway and watch something else and wait for this to hit the bargain bin and your local DVD store.

Dubbel Gee’s Rating: 4/10

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Author: Garth Ginsburg
Website: http://dubbelgeesreview.wordpress.com

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Alan Straton

Chief Cook, Bottle Washer and Broom Mechanic at MyPE
Passionate about Port Elizabeth and definitely NOT packing for Perth. Alan's ethos is epitomised in the words of Nelson Mandela; "I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the idea of a democratic and free society. If need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die." See more articles by Alan.