I have dream! I have a dream that one day comedies starring African Americans will be funny. I have a dream. No, it’s not exactly on “brotherhood of man” scale, but, hey, I’m no MLK, Jr. And neither is Tyler Perry.
Can I blame Tyler for this? I have to try. Tyler Perry didn’t write, direct or act in Peeples. He does have a producer credit. What does that matter? It matters because he attached his name to yet another thumbs down. The bar set by Tyler Perry is so low, there aren’t actual standards. And where there are no standards, you’ll find the greenlighting of scripts with no merit, like Peeples.
Peeples is another flounder from the tiresome fish-out-of-water school. Wade Walker (Craig Robinson) wants to propose this weekend to his inner city galpal, Grace (Kerry Washington), but she opts to spend the time with family at their estate in Sag Harbor. That’s the Sag Harbor mentioned several times in Moby Dick for those playing at home. Feeling like he’s missing the boat, Wade follows Grace to the place of her Peeples where hilarity ensues like water going uphill. Virgil Peeples (David Alan Grier, suddenly looking very old … wha’ happen’ ?) is a humorless and overprotective circuit court judge. And Wade is an unlicensed counselor who composes and performs songs helping children overcome their anxieties. The keystone in this arch of comedic 
genius is a song entitled “Speak it! (Don’t leak it)” which encourages children to use words instead of peeing on their parents. Ok, I just know you’re teary-eyed with laughter, but settle down because there’s a lot of movie to go. Scene after scene of Wade’s boorish pedestrianism conflicts with Virgil’s hardass protectionism. That’s your movie, folks. I swear we’ve seen Ice Cube take on this role 18 times already.
Wait a sec. Kids peeing on their parents … is this a thing?
Virgil and his former soul-singing wife (S. Epatha Merkerson) live on an estate that looks and feels exactly like the one Ryan Reynolds takes Sandra Bullock home to in The Proposal, right down to the larger-than-life family dog. In a way, this is good. Sure it feels plagiarized, but there’s something satisfying in knowing it’s acceptable for a wealthy black family to have, essentially, the same things a wealthy white family has and nobody thinks twice to ask if it looks wrong.
Peeples wasn’t Tyler Perry terrible. I did find myself genuinely laughing in a few places – one such being when Wade confronts Grace after learning a few former boyfriends of hers are currently in their 60s. First, he playfully accuses her of going out with with W.E. B. DuBois and Frederick Douglass among others, then he questions her dating the extras from the Thriller video while starting do make with the zombie moves therein. For me, it was laugh out loud funny. I don’t get that from any Tyler Perry film. I even like Craig Robinson … I daresay more than Ice Cube. Maybe next time, he’ll get another Hot Tub Time Machine. Fingers crossed.
Wading out in his fiancée’s water
Served to daddy like cannon fodder
He’ll take many a burn
For failure to learn
The sins of the cinematographer
Rated PG-13, 95 Minutes
D: Tina Gordon Chism
W: Tina Gordon Chism
Genre: Ice Cube plot
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Ice Cube; thankful that somebody else has to do this crap.
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: “I fought for civil rights so this could happen?”
♪Parody inspired by “People”
