Madea’s Witness Protection
Director: Tyler Perry
Screenplay: Tyler Perry
Cast: Tyler Perry, Eugene Levy, Denise Richards, Romeo Miller, Doris Roberts, John Amos
Genre: Comedy
Rating: ******* (Out of 10)
Venue: Ster Kinekor Maerua mall, Cine 4
One would think that by now you would know what to expect in a Tyler Perry Madea movie, a loud-mouth, no-nonsense, crazy ghetto granny that manages to straighten out attitudes and keeps the audience laughing. Madea’s Witness Protection is not your typical Madea movie, it’s different. Tyler Perry is at again bringing us a ‘new Madea’ with a ‘new look’ in New York.
This hilarious movie is about George Needleman, (Eugene Levy), a CFO of a Wall Street investment bank, who lives with his frustrated wife, Kate (Denise Richards). One morning George who has been living with his head in the clouds, gets a wake up call when he realises that his company has been operating a pyramid scheme and he has been set up to take the fall when the company gets investigated by the FBI. Faced with criminal charges and threats from the Malone family, a mafia family, George and his family enter witness protection in the safest place prosecutor Brian (Tyler Perry) can think of, his aunt Madea’s (Tyler Perry) house.
Madea is skeptical about playing safe house host but changes her mind when she is offered U$4000 per month for taking in the Needleman family. There are many good lines in this movie; – one when George’s son asks for WI-FI and Madea says, “Sure, I can make you a waffle, I just mix some flour, eggs, milk and sugar”. One of the funniest is Madea trying to explain her new housemates to a nosy neighbour, “My cousins, they all lost the pigmentation in their skin overnight.“ My favorite line is Madea saying “I don’t know how I’m gonna hide five white folks in a neighbourhood that don’t even have any white cats or white cars, we don’t have anything white here” as well as when Madea tries out her Tyra catwalk.
Ethnic conflicts arise in the house when George’s senile mother, Barbra (Doris Roberts from American comedy Everybody loves Raymond) is convinced that their new host is their maid. Madea takes the old woman’s remarks with surprisingly good humor and even manages to repair the broken relationship between George, his angry teenage daughter and wife by giving the young lady a guilt trip where she tells her that her family has been murdered by the mob. After this she apologises and starts to value and appreciate her family.
Also in the plot is Jake (Romeo Miller) a pastor’s son who loses his church’s US$114,000 mortgage fund after investing it in Lockwise Industries, the same scam company that framed George but is unable to break the bad news to his sick father (John Amos). Jake and George conspire to get the money back and enlist Madea to play Precious Jackson, a rich old lady in whose name the bank account with the money is. The three travel to New York. Levy plays Madea’s French assistant and transforms Madea into a ‘lady’. The scenes where Madea has to go through airport security are hilarious and so are the scenes of the three on the plane when Madea orders everything strong and brown, as the plane experiences some turbulence.
This is a good film with some nice humor. The look on Levy’s face is priceless when his boss tells him that he is taking the fall for the scam. His Sesame Street‘s Bart’s eyebrows are classic. I think that having a white cast will help Perry expand his audience. It is a really funny movie and the writing is also both excellent and entertaining. I laughed all through the movie. Perry wanted to create a unique Madea movie and he manages to do just that in this movie. I found it refreshing, there is a reason why I will never get tired of Madea. She connects with me and makes me laugh. It follows the Tyler Perry movie trademark that teaches morals and to never forget God’s importance in our lives as well as dealing honestly in all that we do and to value others.
