Madea Goes to Jail

This narrative can't make it's mind up. The director (who also writes it) gets confused between whether he has written a comedy, or a melodrama.

The scenes containing what we believe to be the main protagonist 'Madea' are an attempt at comedy that rely on spectacle and stereotype. The gags aren't executed very well at all (yet you can't blame the actors and actresses with this script) and I get the feeling that this has all been done before, recently in fact and better I might add.

Scenes containing Candi are melodramatic and actually not that bad. There is some good acting and the plot is well contrived. Some of these scenes question American class division and have a purpose.

So, bring these two elements together and you get a confused audience. The two stories have no relevance to each other until the end of the film when they 'collide'. I use collide loosely because this doesn't even happen. The characters meet and nothing much happens. I think they spoke together in about three shots.

The story itself lets the director down as well. It's easy to second guess (yet you wish you'd be proved wrong) and you wonder whether you are watching two different movies playing at once. The character of Madea is badly constructed. There is no development what-so-ever. Without giving too much away; Madea's involvement in the ending is complete nonsense. People who have seen this film will probably agree that she has no real reason to be there.

To sum up, this is the worst film I have seen in years. The director should have picked one of the stories instead of merging them in some sort of Nutty Professor meets Pretty Woman side show. Utterly ridiculous.