Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns Review

Posted by Bryan Kristopowitz on 03.27.2008

Tyler Perry presents... yet another good movie.


Angela Bassett- Brenda
David Mann- Leroy Brown
Lance Gross- Michael
Rick Fox- Harry
Frankie Faison- L.B.
Margaret Avery- Sarah
Irma P. Hall- Mildred
Jenifer Lewis- Vera
Sofia Vergara- Cheryl
Chloe Bailey- Tosha
Tamela J. Mann- Cora Brown
Kristopher Lofton- Calvin
Tyler Perry- Madea/Joe
Directed by Tyler Perry
Screenplay by Tyler Perry, based on his play "Meet the Browns"
Distributed by Lionsgate
Rated PG-13 for drug content, language including sexual references, thematic elements and brief violence
Runtime- 100 minutes
Website: http://www.meetthebrownsfilm.com/

I went into Tyler Perry's latest movie effort, "Meet the Browns," expecting a bit of a change of pace from his previous movies. For the most part, Perry usually finds a balance between well staged melodrama and broad comedy, never showcasing more of one or the other. But, with "Meet the Browns" (and this is based completely on my understanding of the Leroy Brown character via Perry's sitcom "House of Payne," where he has appeared a few times), I expected more of a comedy than anything else. I thought that there would be a narrative emphasis on David Mann's Leroy Brown character and perhaps how he and his family exist in wherever they happen to live in Georgia. But Perry didn't deliver that kind of movie. "Meet the Browns" is just like his other movies, a balance between melodrama and broad comedy.

That's not a dig at the movie or Perry. He just didn't do what I thought he was going to do. What he has done, though, is quite good. Nothing new, but quite good.

"Meet the Browns" stars Angela Bassett as Brenda, a struggling single mother from Chicago. One day, she finds out via letter that her father, a man she never knew, recently died and she's needed at the funeral in Georgia. Why, exactly, she doesn't know. She doesn't even really want to go anyway. Again, she didn't know her father, nor does she know the family members likely to be there. Brenda has a problem getting to know people or trust people. The only people she's close to are her teenage son and young daughter (Michael, as played by Lance Gross, and Tosha, as played by Chloe Bailey) and her friend Cheryl (Sofia Vergara). Her son's father, Michael Sr. (Phillip Edward Van Lear) refuses to pay any child support (he does show every now and then offering to give her some money if she has sex with him. So, yeah, he's a real pillar of the community), and she's constantly in need of a job (regardless of how hard she may work, she can still lose her job at a moment's notice and she can't do anything about it). She eventually decides to go down to Georgia for the funeral when she figures that, taking everything into consideration, she's got nothing to lose. So Brenda takes her family to Georgia.

Georgia, at least the small town Brenda arrives in (I'm going to assume that it's outside of Atlanta because that's where it seems most of Perry's movies take place), is vastly different from the urban concrete fortress that is Chicago. It's the "country." She first meets Leroy Brown (David Mann), the "main" Brown of the flick's advertising. Leroy and his daughter Cora (Tamela Mann) take Brenda and her kids to the Brown homestead where Brenda gets to meet the rest of the family. There's L.B. (Frankie Faison), the man who sent Brenda the letter, and his wife Sarah (Margaret Avery). And there's Vera (Jenifer Lewis), the annoying lush of the family who can't stop insulting people. The Brown family tries to make Brenda feel at home, tell her that she's family and she's welcome and they have to stick together. Vera's mouth and constant harping on Brenda's kids' fathers doesn't help, but for the most part it's a positive, loving atmosphere. But Brenda can't deal with it. She just can't. Nor can she deal with the coincidence (she doesn't believe it's a coincidence, but it is. Or just a contrivance of the plot) involving Harry (Rick Fox), the former pro basketball player who has been pursuing both Brenda and Michael (Michael is quite the high school basketball player). She's suspicious of Harry's motives (can you blame her? All of the men in her life have been jag offs).

After the reading of the will (Brenda's father leaves her his old rental property in the middle of nowhere), Brenda bolts back to Chicago. She has to get back to what she knows, what she's used to. She has to get a new job. She has to make sure Michael stays out of trouble, away from his drug dealing friends "on the streets." She has to make her life work.

I don't think I'm giving anything away in saying it ends pretty much like you'd expect it to. Brenda fights and fights and eventually finds some sense of happiness.

Bassett is superb as Brenda, but that's to be expected. She's easily the most accomplished of the cast, really the only one besides David Mann who can hold the screen by herself. She does have problems, though, when she has to act against the whole Brown family. They steal dang near every scene they're in together. She does make Rick Fox look good, though. Fox, by himself, is just an okay actor (he's nothing special, but he can get the job done. He can say his lines and whatnot and not be annoying), but working with Bassett he's dang near great.

David Mann is hysterical as Leroy Brown. He's playing a broad, loveable buffoon (he wears a very small hair piece on top of his head at his father's funeral because, you know, it's a special, solemn occassion), the kind of character we've seen a million times before, but Mann is just so enthusiastic in the role you can't help but appreciate him. Besides the bits with the hair piece, his best scene is his basketball "uniform." It's ridiculous. Margaret Avery is great as Sarah. She's a great, soft counterpart to Faison's gruff but nice L.B. Faison's comedy is more subtle than Mann's. Watch him when he pushes Vera into his father's grave. Great stuff. And Jenifer Lewis is a ball of fire as Vera. Perry probably could have made a movie of Vera and L.B. just arguing and it would have worked.

Irma P. Hall is fine as Mildred, the old woman who babysits for Brenda. She's mean but fair. Hall can be both disagreeable and charismatic at the same time. If Brenda didn't have so much respect for her, you'd probably wonder why she isn't punching the old bag in the face when she starts talking about her "generation." Mildred needs to meet Leroy Brown. That'd be epic hilarity for sure. Phillip Edward Van Lear is a total scumbag as Michael, Sr. The first time you see him you want to kick him in the nuts. Lance Gross, who plays Calvin on Perry's "House of Payne" sitcom, is brilliant as Brenda's son. It's surprising because, if you watch him on "House of Payne" and then see him here, Gross is a totally different person. Amazing to watch. And Sofia Vergara has two of the biggest breasts I think I've ever seen pushed together in a dress in a movie. She's just great.

Now, Perry's Madea does appear in the movie, but she is not the focal point of the story. Madea's role is more akin to a glorified cameo than anything else. From what I've read online, the scene is meant to be a bridge to his next movie, "Madea Goes to Jail," which is a great concept I can't wait to see as a movie (however, if you check out imdb, "Madea Goes to Jail" is not listed as Perry's next movie. "The Family That Preys" is his next listed movie, and it doesn't appear that Madea is in that. So what the heck is really going on here?). It is a bit of a cheat, though, in terms of this flick's advertising, because Madea is all over the place right next to Leroy Brown.

And, for you "House of Payne" fans out there, be on the look out for LaVan Davis, who you all know as Curtis Payne. It's an interesting cameo. I don't know why, though, Bart Hansard doesn't appear. If anyone from "House of Payne" was going to make a cameo, you'd think it'd be him.

"Meet the Browns" is a good, typical Tyler Perry movie. If you give it a chance, you'll probably like it. It's funny, it's heart warming, and it deals with issues without it seeming awkward. It's just a good, solid effort from all involved.

So what do we have here? Gratuitous elevated trains, drying clothes on clotheslines, running to catch a bus for work, gratuitous LaVan Davis, gratuitous factory shutting down and scumbag white men in ties running off, smoking a joint, gratuitous old woman, talking about Jesus and praying, gratuitous Quaker Oats oatmeal flakes, gratuitous listening to the radio and mother dancing with son, gratuitous getting the power shut off, gratuitous high school basketball, old shoes, making the winning point at the last second, gratuitous gangland hoodlums, brick to the back, gratuitous taking a bus to Georgia, gratuitous David Mann, driving a car and not paying attention to traffic, gratuitous Rick Fox, one-on-one basketball, women talk in the kitchen, a big family dinner, a tummy ache, the "pimp" routine, gratuitous raucous funeral with a three hour eulogy, pushing a woman into an open grave, will reading, gratuitous carnival, eating cotton candy, Beanie Babies, "last will and testicles," a broken down old house, family issues, gratuitous street crime with gangland shooting, eating ribs, gratuitous montage, gratuitous Madea and Joe, basketball contract signing with press conference and a proper comeuppance, and marriage.

Best lines: "I ain't going to no Georgia," "Little girl, you don't know nothing about my business," "All we got to eat is oatmeal?," "Hey, one thing a black woman knows how to do is make it," "Miss Brown, can I take you to lunch?," "My name is child welfare and I'm here to lock you up," "This is country," "I told you. It's Chicken George," "My name is Leroy Brown. You can call me Leroy Brown," "Chicago? Ain't that where them big buildings are?," "Want some cake?," "Brown, I didn't know your soldiers marched," "Don't go gospel gangsta on her," "I ain't sleeping in no room a dead man died in!," "Oh, hell to the no, my papa wasn't no rolling stone!," "My daddy was a saint. Your daddy was a pimp," "Deacon, he's dead," "Sit down, Brown!," "No child of mine is going to sell dope!," "Hey, man, that's good, what is that, pork?," "Don't call my house again. You're pissing off my wife," and "Mama, I got my own room!"

The 411: "Meet the Browns" isn't all that different from director Tyler Perry's other movies. That's not a bad thing, though. I just thought he was going to do a different kind of movie. I enjoyed it.

Final Score:  7.5   [ Good ]