Madea Goes to Jail (2009)

I scratched my head through most of this movie and remain quite bewildered by it now that I've seen the whole thing. What's with the title? Madea (one of those man playing a woman characters) is really only about half of the movie, the half that deals with Madea is silly at best and irritating at worst, and she only goes to jail for about the last 20 minutes. So what's with "Madea Goes To Jail" as if that's the focal point of the story?

The real meat of the story revolves around the relationship between Joshua (Derek Luke) and Candi (Keshia Knight Pulliam.) Joshua is a DA who rose from the wrong side of the tracks and is now engaged to Linda (Ion Overman) - another DA and something of a "princess" - as she's repeatedly called. Candi, meanwhile, is a prostitute who grew up with Joshua and who reconnects with him. Joshua has a need to help her out of her situation. Something happened between the two years ago that makes Joshua feel responsible for Candi, but it takes a while for that to come out. This story is the "meat" of the movie, far more central than the Madea storyline, and not really related to it in any meaningful way. The Candi story is a heavy one: prostitution, drugs, jail, rape. For a comedy this is actually pretty dark most of the way through. Madea, I guess, is supposed to provide the comedy, but aside from a handful of scenes doesn't really accomplish that. There's a bizarre focus on religion throughout this, highlighted by a decent enough turn by Viola Davis as an unorthodox minister reaching out to the local streetwalkers. Even Dr. Phil appears in this. The exchange between him and Madea was cute for a while, but got tired very fast, and why it was deemed necessary to have yet another portrayal of a Madea/Dr. Phil session run during the closing credits is one of those mysteries no one will ever be able to explain.

If this had just focused on the Joshua/Candi story it would have made for some pretty good material and a pretty powerful movie. Unfortunately, the nonsense surrounding the Madea material drags everything else about this movie down. This is basically a poorly put together and overall unappealing movie. (3/10)