She Might Kill Them First... "Madea's Witness Protection"

Madea's Witness Protection (2012)

Rated PG-13

Starring Tyler Perry, Eugene Levy, Denise Richards, Doris Roberts, Tom Arnold

Written and Directed by Tyler Perry

The Story:

An investment banker (Levy) is framed in a Ponzi scheme by his boss (Arnold). His entire family gets relocated to live with Madea (Perry) who's going to teach them some good ol' fashioned family values, and save their lives in the process.

I usually come across pretty hard on Tyler Perry's non-Madea films.

Either too boring, or with just characters that make me want to punch the tv.

:)

I normally say, "not as good as his Madea films".

Then along comes Witness Protection, which most will say is the bottom of the barrel with this franchise.

Meh.

It's not so bad.

Your typical fish out of water as the uptight, dysfunctional New York family is forced to live with Madea and learn to live life on her terms.

This falls in the realm of mostly harmless fun, and as always, Levy is a delight, making movies more enjoyable just by being himself.


Available to stream instantly on Netflix or Amazon Prime

Final Grade: C

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: It's been about 2 years since I last saw it. Harmless mostly. Another few years, might watch the Madea movies again.

Witness Protection due to a "Hit and Run"

If you're going to outrun your past...drive a fast car!


The Story:

Charlie Bronson (Dax Shepard) and his girlfriend Annie (Kristen Bell) live in a small town and are relatively happy.  Then Annie is told about a killer job that's available and one that she is ideally suited for.  The only complication?  It's in Los Angeles, and her boyfriend is in Witness Protection because of something that happened in L.A. that he is hiding out from.  He insists on taking her to L.A., after all, it's been 4 years, what could possibly happen?

Okay, first off, it's a budget movie, in the very sense of the word.  Apparently a 2 million dollar budget, and half of that was to make sure they had music.  So I'm guessing the actors themselves either did it as a favor to Dax, or took about a 5 dollar paycheck.

But you know what?

It's still a pretty fun little movie.

As Charlie and Annie leave town, they are followed by the Federal Marshall (Tom Arnold) who doesn't want them to leave, Annie's ex who thinks Charlie is going to kill Annie.  Naturally, he Facebooks the bad guy (Bradley Cooper) and all parties zero in on Charlie to make his life miserable.

Nothing life changing.

Nothing earth shattering.

Just a fun little movie that zips along at a pretty good pace, and then it's over.

Fair enough.



The action scenes are well done, the humor is there, the dialogue works throughout.  Apparently Dax Shepard wanted to give it a try as writer/director/producer and star.


The kid's got potential!


Final Grade: B-

Would I Buy it For the Vault: Tempting.  I could certainly watch it again, and that says a lot for many movies these days.