Locked away in every Tyler Perry movie, I feel, is a great filmmaker who is held down by the conventions of his own genre who prohibits himself from elevating his empire to full "Kingdom Come" Status. This is not to say that Tyler Perry could ever be Spike Lee, but its not to suggest that he couldn't be if he was to hone his craft a little better and take advantage of the performers who seems to, by sheer will, elevate his material beyond the vaudeville.
For Perry, there is a tried and true formula and he does little to deviate as yet again we have a movie wrapped around a female heroine (the Amazing Taraji P Henson) who must look past her demons, sift through her baggage, and through redemption and faith, find love and family. At first a novelty, "Bad" was the first time I was outright bored by Perry and his stale bag of tricks because for every three things he seems to get brazenly correct, there is usually one major thing he drops the ball on. In "Bad" that would be Randy as played by Brian J White.
I know Perry's productions are more geared towards a female audience, but he usually only provides two archetypes for males. Hard up, honest, blue-collar upstanding citizen inked out of a Disney cartoon and straight up thug. Randy in "Bad" would be the thug by way of married with 4 kids and bunking up with his mistress (Henson). But what really urked me about his character was when it was used as a way of divulging the child abuse issues faced by Henson's character and the wonderful Hope Olaide Wilson who plays Jennifer, the niece of Henson whose grandmother has custody of her and her two brothers but has been missing from some time. This issue brought up a much larger issue in the story which is, almost all of the characters aside from Henson and Wilson are motivated by plot points and must work their characters in ways that facilitate the stories forward momentum. So when we have an 11th hour situation involving Randy and Jennifer (who is 16 in the story) - the whole thing feels sloppy, vulgar, and inauthentic. I say inauthentic because for the most part, characters divulging past issues such as rape and domestic abuse in previous Perry films was used as a way to encourage discussion within the community. Here is just a cheap plot point meant to resuscitate the bland third act.
Although the typical do gooder male archetype, Adam Rodriguez is also worth noting for his performance, along with Henson and Olaide, elevates this mess to something approaching a cinematic experience. Somehow I wish Mary J Blige, Glady's Knight, and Marvin Winans could have been used to better effect, but their peformances along with the forementioned spring the production to life giving it that much needed soul and heart.
One day Perry's productions will rely less on its crutch, Madea. And one day, I would love to see one of Perry's productions directed by someone other than Tyler Perry. For now, it seems all we will get from him is the rehash and remix, but until Perry realizes that his audience is capable of more from him, is ready to grow with him and should be given more, I can't really blame him for taking the money and running.
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