"Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys" Review - Written by TonyD

“Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys”
2008
BOMB out of ****
Director: Tyler Perry
Cast: Alfre Woodward, Kathy Bates, Sanaa Lathan


Out of all of the unfunny Dane Cooks in the world… all of the obnoxiously tiring Dan Foglers in the world… out of all of the annoying Sarah Palins in the world… there is one man that I hate more than all of them, and his name is Tyler Perry.

This person came out of nowhere with his first movie. Before “Diary of a Mad Black Woman,” I never heard of this guy before, who apparently based this script on his stage-play from a few years back. In all fairness, I must say that “Diary” isn’t a totally bad film. But then there is his other movies – “Madea’s Family Reunion,” which was boring, “Daddy’s Little Girls,” it would have been a good movie if it wasn’t for that annoying fucking ending (how did all of the sudden did that motherfucker rape some lady a while back?), “Why Did I Get Married?,” which was possibly one of the worst films I’ve ever seen, and I didn’t even see “Meet the Browns” because that just looked like shit.

I wasn’t actually “planning” on seeing his latest film “The Family That Preys,” but when you are given the opportunity to see a movie for free, you seize the opportunity and you watch the bastard for free, even if it is directed by Tyler Perry. And I learned two things that day – 1. Tyler Perry can make Academy Award nominated actresses even look bad, and 2. Tyler Perry will never, ever get my money again… not like he ever did though.

Charlotte Cartwright (Kathy Bates) runs some big business where she flourishes in money and wealth, whereas her friend Alice (Alfre Woodward) has to earn her money by running a restaurant. These two old women go on a trip across the country while we play a game of Six Degrees with all of these other characters. Alice’s daughter Andrea (Sanaa Lathan) is married to Chris, (Rockmond Dunbar) who discovers that Andrea has over three-hundred thousand dollars in another bank account but doesn’t understand how she got it. It turns out that she is having an affair with her boss and Charlotte’s son William. (Cole Hauser) Chris secretly admires William and wants to start his own construction business with his brother-in-law Ben, (Tyler Perry) who is married to Andrea’s sister, Pam. (Taraji Henson)

The funny thing about this movie is that Tyler Perry takes a curve here, but it is his worst move and should have kept to his old style. Unlike Perry’s other films, which deal with religion and how not to turn your back on your love ones, Perry takes a look at people who have not an ounce of religion in their lives and just how easy it is to turn your back on your family. But don’t worry, Perry fans, there is still a little bit of religion in this film. A scene about halfway through the film is when Charlotte, under Alice’s orders, gets baptized. I was really hoping that Larry David jumped out of his car and try to save Bates from being drowned by a priest.

Did anyone get that “Curb Your Enthusiasm” reference?

Anyway, if you are a Perry fan, it is a sure thing that you will love this movie. To his followers, this will be Perry at the top of his game, doing what Perry does best – examining the good and bad in all relationships. So let me ask Perry’s followers this – is it right to beat the shit out of your wife? Because everyone at my screening of the film laughed their asses off when one woman character gets slapped across the face.

Now, here is the thing – I don’t care whether or not you think that it’s funny. Everyone has a certain kind of humor that they enjoy, and if your kind of humor is twisted and different, well so be it – I’m not one to judge. But explain to me why so many fucking critics and movie-goers are in love with this scene, and then tell me why they all gave a film like “Norbit” negative reviews and thoughts, which was filled with spousal abuse. The only difference between the two films is that this Tyler Perry movie is boy-hitting girl, whereas “Norbit” was girl-hitting-boy. If you love this part in the movie and hate the entire movie of “Norbit,” you have every right to be called a hypocrite.

So if you really wanted to know, I really hated this scene. It isn’t because I also hated “Norbit,” but just because it is just fucking wrong. Tyler Perry thinks that it is alright to smack the shit out of your wife. Let me clear it up now – it is NEVER right to hit a woman, no matter what right or wrong she does. The most ironic part about this? Three-fourths of the theater was packed with African American women in their thirties-fifties. If any of those ladies are reading, I have a question to ask you – would YOU laugh if you were being smacked across the face like that?

Tyler Perry, without a doubt, draws the crowd, especially when it comes to black people. This isn’t meant to be taken in a racial matter, and to call me a racist would be downright absurd, since my uncle and cousins are black. But while watching this movie kind of got me thinking – is Tyler Perry racist of his own kind? Until now, I don’t remember if there was a single WHITE person in his films, but in all of his films, at least two or three of the characters are fat, sluts, pimps, hoes, crack-addicts, or somehow fit the stereotype of a black person. If Robert Downey, Jr. gets a lot of backlash for playing a black person “too-well” and throwing out some stereotypes, why does Perry get away with it?

But I don’t need any of these questions answered, because I need no more to know that “The Family That Preys” is one of the worst movies of the year, by far. The acting by almost every single one of these actors is horrendous, which includes Kathy Bates and Alfre Woodward. The only one that actually gets the brownie-points for doing an okay job is KaDee Strickland, who plays the wife of Andrea’s cheating boss. In one scene, she confronts Andrea in a hotel room. You can see the true emotion in her voice in this scene, and she seems to be the only one that has been showing any emotion.

When we discover a sudden twist on one character played by a lead woman, I just didn’t care anymore. I wished that everyone that was involved with this movie died. I wanted to see all of the women just be thrown in the cage and fight to the death, “Battle Royale” –style. I wanted to see Tyler Perry get a Razzie award for Worst Director, Worst Supporting Actor, and Worst Film. I wanted to see all prints of this film burn in a massive fire. And in the end, when the film is over, this one-hundred minute film feels like three hours long, and I felt mad as hell when I walked out of the theater.