If anyone goes to the theater thinking that this film is a romantic comedy they are in for a big surprise because it is a full on drama. The first half hour of this film was almost too depressing to bare, primarily because Lindsey (Thandie Newton) found herself in one bad situation after another. This leads me to my first observation about Tyler Perry movies, which is that his characters are typically so one dimensional. He plays the male lead Wesley Deeds (Tyler Perry) and he is just entirely too predictable and too good to be true, well that is until the elevator scene. His antithesis is his brother Walter Deeds (Brian White) who is too enraged to be true. Then there is their mother Wilhimina (Phylicia Rashad) who is a true piece of work with her disdain for her younger son and complete and utter worship of her eldest. The extreme misfortune time after time that befalls Lindsey, all just became too much. People are just not that one dimensional, the only character that was somewhat rounded was Natalie (Gabrielle Union) who conveyed a whole range of emotions, which is what people do. They are happy, they are sad, they are frustrated, they are thoughtful and they sometimes get inebriated just hanging out with friends. But no one is the same all the time. I understand the approach in film making, it makes it clear what type of person the character is, so you know who to cheer or boo, but it leaves very little to the intellect of a viewer. People are not simply one emotion they are very complex, even in the span of an hour and a half. A very bright light in contrast to most of the adults was Ariel (Jordenn Thompson), what an adorable child. Which leads to my second observation of Tyler Perry movies, he does an amazing job of including exceptionally talented people in his films. I would have liked the story much better if it had focused less on the Lindsey dilemmas and more on the budding romance between Lindsey and Wesley. And I was completely thrown off with the final setting of the story because it failed credibility. I'll just say that down and out people do not typically have a passport to readily leave the country on a moment's notice, and some countries require that you receive a bevy of immunizations before visiting. With that said, I give Good Deeds an amber light.
Review of Good Deeds
