You never quite get used to how wrong a Tyler Perry scene feels: An old man stops breathing during foreplay in a hotel room. His lingerie-clad mistress is so alarmed, she dashes to the hallway –damned be her outfit- for help. Gawkers arrive; all of them are family to the man dying man on the bed. And they stand in unison at the entrance to the room making jokes for a full three minutes before anyone decides to call for emergency help.
I know this is a comedy, but it’s a Tyler Perry comedy which means that half the players in the film are not part of the comedy. You have to see one of these things to understand it; it’s like half the cast thinks they’re in Macbeth while the director dressed as Lady Macbeth is having a giggle. So you have this scene where the son (Courtney Burrell), who has been cheating in non-comic fashion next door, is desperately acting for his life while a group of idiots hangs out at the jamb making “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” jokes. It’s OK, this is the comic part. It’s hilarious when cheatin’ gramps dies because the Viagra is still in full effect.
You know, I was actually excited for a scene in this film. Shame on you, Jim. You knew better and you still gave Tyler a chance to disappoint you. Shame on you. Shame, shame on you. Early on, Tyler’s group of comic fogies, including three of his alter egos: Madea, Joe, and the “normal” one, Brian, are pulled over by police. Holy crap! Is Tyler Perry going to make a BLM statement?! This, I gotta see! What followed made me wonder if Tyler Perry has ever been pulled over in his life. The police took exactly as long as needed for five people to tell a series of “pulled over” “jokes,” then the cop was standard abusive at first go round which evolved into sycophantic fawning after checking out Brian’s DL. How is that a thing? Did Brian suddenly become governor of Georgia? Then, the police car departed first –before the car it pulled over- which is definitely NOT a thing. My “let’s see Tyler make a genuine political statement” quickly turned into, “I seem to know more about being pulled over than a black man.” How is that possible?
OK, well, the film. A Madea Family Funeral was everything you’d expect, in other words a poor man’s version of Death at a Funeral (either the English or American version, take you pick). The victim was a long-time playah, so we don’t mind tarnishing his memory. What drives me bats about the Tyler screenplays are his tone-deaf reactions to his own words. In the comic portion of the film, the dead man’s exploits as a womanizer are lauded and deliberately kept hidden from his widow. (For instance, every time one of the elder folk almost blurts out the old man died while cheating, Madea hits them in the face, ha ha.) These moments are interspersed with ancient folks telling tales of the ghosts of sexual exploit past. Tyler Perry even invented a new alter ego to get in on the fun: a legless, voice box-less embodiment of Jheri curl named Uncle Heathrow. UH shows up to the reunion with a cake depicting a vixen riding a panther.
In dramatic portion of the film, however, the dead man is castigated by everybody for his lack of fidelity. This portion even goes so far as to make a villain of A.J. (Burrell). A villain in a movie about burying a villain; did not see that one coming. I love the transition towards the end where Madea suddenly shifts from fool to sage and reads A.J. the riot act over his cheating ways, the exact same ways that Joe, Madea, and the fogie fornication alliance all crowed over not a half hour previous in the same film.
One thing I truly did appreciate about A Madea Family Funeral was the pointed references by acerbic grandpa Joe that his sister is a hermaphrodite. I suppose this is a wink and a nod Tyler is giving us all about his entire world of sexual fluidity. No matter what, I do find these movies, however painful to watch, perhaps breach taboos in a sense on transvestitism, which is only a half-step away from genuine LGBTQ awareness. If a Tyler Perry film can actually move a crowd towards acceptance of a more generous understanding of modern human sexuality, perhaps these films aren’t a complete waste of time after all.
But I’d still rather see The Hate U Give twenty times over before giving Madea their proper Funeral.
Like most others, I can be impressively thick
But you’ve got my attention right quick
A Funeral you say?
I’m excited! No way!
Rats, was hoping for death of this shtick
Rated PG-13, 109 Minutes
Director: Tyler Perry
Writer: Tyler Perry
Genre: Death at a Funeral’s unfunny cousin
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: The Madea crowd
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Everyone else
