The righteously slaphappy Madea (Tyler Perry) agrees to shelter an upper-class white family whose patriarch (Eugene Levy at his most shrill) is the fall guy in a mob-linked corporate Ponzi scheme. The film’s best gags—such as Madea’s elderly brother Joe (Perry again) trying to determine if Levy’s character is his illegitimate son—stem from the resulting culture clash. The writer-director-star still hasn’t learned to smoothly blend broad comedy and family-values sermonizing. His out-of-costume supporting performance as an FBI agent (a foil who gets about as much screen time as the title character) suggests he may be tiring of his own drag routine, even if audiences aren’t.
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