George and Brian find a break in the case when the fake name of “Precious Jackson” is revealed to be that of a codename for a nonexistent account holder. There is also a running joke in the movie that Barbara and conceived George years ago when they coincidentally met 52 years prior). This begins a collection of events that lead to wisdom imparted on the family by Madea and Joe as they all live together, with the uptight family learning to cherish the time they spend with each other, without the distraction of work (as with George) or technology (as with Howie and Cindy). With the involved mob considered a serious threat to the Needlemans (despite their bare appearance in the story), Brian comes up with the idea that they will stay at his aunt Madea’s place under witness protection, where his father Joe also lives. While the company is under investigation by friendly prosecutor Brian (Tyler Perry), George and his wife Kate (Denise Richards), son Howie (Devan Leos), daughter Cindy (Danielle Campbell), and mother Barbara (Doris Roberts) are put into a witness protection program. One of the investment funds lost in the scheme belongs to former thug Jake (Romeo Miller), who initially invested funds to save his father's (John Amos) church, and is left to his own naïve devices to get the money back. In the film, a very twitchy Eugene Levy plays George Needleman, a CFO of an investment firm who was duped into a Ponzi scheme that laundered money from the mob to fake charities. While Madea’s Witness Protection might be yet another cheaply assembled preaching product from the Tyler Perry Studios factory, this particular film stands out for being the first time that Perry allows the comedic freewheeling strength of Madea to ultimately drive the story. Yet, despite Madea’s accessibility as a familiar archetype to a general mainstream audiences buttered by the previous transvestite slapstick of Martin Lawrence and Eddie Murphy, Madea has always run secondary to Perry’s stuffy sermonizing, often utilized to lure viewers unaware of the shallow spiritual waters they are about to tread (as with Madea Goes to Jail, or I Can Do Bad All By Myself, movies that could have certainly used more Madea). Through many stories, often featuring themes of forgiveness leading to redemption and usually dramatically steered by sharp turns more commonplace in soap operas than mainstream American films, one of Perry’s most successful contributions to American film culture has been the rambunctious character Madea, a senior African American woman that has Perry wearing stuffy flower dresses over a junky bodysuit, topping his head with a cheap gray wig, and completing the look with a sharp high pitched voice. Often working from his own original screenplays, which would be first drafts for many other writers, Perry remains a fiercely prolific force on his level, creating a surplus of storytelling about middle-aged African Americans for the mediums of television, film, and the stage, where Perry’s unrivaled enterprise was first conceived. This order of professional priorities is evident with the overall quality of any of his projects his authorship is constructed of shabbily made narratives with cardboard characters, as glued together by laughable melodrama (which has made Good Deeds, Why Did I Get Married Too? and For Colored Girls critically condemned, among others). Tyler Perry is a storyteller first, a mogul second, an actor third, and maybe somewhere down the list, a filmmaker fourteenth or fifteenth. WHO'S IT FOR? If you like the character Madea, then you'll get what you want here. PLOT: A father (Levy) and his family are put under witness protection at Madea's (Perry) house after he is unknowingly involved in a Ponzi charity scheme. Cast: Tyler Perry, Eugene Levy, Denise Richards, Romeo Miller, Tom Arnold
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