A Madea Family Funeral

A Madea Family Funeral

Tyler Perry must think I’m stupid; there’s no way I’m going to believe that “A Madea Family Funeral” is the last movie starring his most famous character. Mabel Simmons, the perpetually pissed off, six foot something, occasionally blasphemous old lady whom Perry has played on stage and screen for years ain’t dying easy. Not after all the poor black women who have told me they see themselves in her. She can’t go down without a fight or at least another dozen or so movies and Tyler Perry knows this about as well as he knows anything. He does this for better or worse, and he does it a lot.

And since Madea isn’t the one dying this time, but rather the person in charge of coordinating the funeral (among other things), she’s now free to appear in more movies than ever before. Which she will. Bet your bottom dollar.

While you’re placing your bets, though, I should tell you that this is also Perry’s best film since his most dramatically effective movie “I Can Do Bad All By Myself.” It makes sense that he would want to tackle this particular Black church staple because Black Baptist funerals are just like Tyler Perry films: They’re too damn long.

“A Madea Family Funeral” gets good mileage out of sending up how Black folks prepare for and attend homegoing services. Wearing a humongous black church hat that looks like it was borrowed from the Wicked Witch of the West’s couture closet, Madea runs the funeral like an orchestra conductor at the Oscars. “Two minutes!” she yells at everyone who takes the pulpit to speak on the dead, and she pulls them offstage if they don’t comply quickly enough. Still somehow, even with all these security measures in place, the funeral lasts nine hours.

There are also jokes about how long it typically takes Black people to schedule funerals. Much is made of how quickly Vianne (Jen Harper) wants to inter her husband, Anthony (Derek Morgan). Madea is only given two days to pull it all together, prompting multiple complaints from the rest of their family. And, in typical Tyler Perry fashion, this particular family is chock-full of secrets and drama which means that there will be a seismic shift in tone at some point during the movie.

It works better here than usual, perhaps because the jokes are meaner and darker than you might expect them to be. The drama seems to co-exist more peacefully with the comedy this time around. Plus, Perry’s script has a blistering monologue for Vianne that Harper delivers with show-stopping gusto.

“A Madea Family Funeral” also brings up and then proceeds to mock the unspoken reason why we’re told not to speak ill of the dead: Sometimes the person in the casket is a rotten bastard who deserves for us to send him off by trashing his name all over town. But decorum must be maintained.

Of course, Madea is pure id; so she can’t help but take a few swipes at respectability while she’s at it. After too many unknown women raise their hands when asked “if you knew the deceased,” she adds “if you knew him Biblically.” The same number of hands go up again.

But I trust none of this has spoiled anything for you about future sequels?

The one who died was a major league ho. He’s the kind who took viagra even after death. In fact, nearly everyone in this film is prostituting themselves out. Anthony has a heart attack during a wild S&M session with Vianne’s best friend that A.J. and Gia who are carrying on an affair of their own in the next hotel room overhear and eventually witness (Gia is engaged to A.J.’s brother Jessie; A.J. is married to a doormat he walks all over for most of the movie). This sets up the central drama that Perry keeps returning to whenever he veers away from comedy.

A.J.’s usually the type of guy Madea pulls her pistol on in these movies, but this time she saves all her venom for her usual cronies Hattie (Patrice Lovely), Aunt Bam (Cassi Davis) and her brother Joe (Tyler Perry), who are also at the hotel when they discover Anthony’s affair, viewing him donned in S&M gear and full arousal (Hattie’s reaction to this is shockingly dirty).

Madea tries to keep this secret from Vianne, but her crew can’t keep quiet, so Madea just slaps the hell out of them every time their mouths get too busy going so far as to knock Joe’s dentures out of his mouth and force Hattie to utter words that guarantee at least a PG-13 if not an R; I should be ashamed of myself, but I laughed my ass off every time she hit somebody.

As if he weren’t doing enough onscreen already, Perry plays another character named Heathrow. Heathrow is in a wheelchair, has lost both his legs and needs an artificial voice box because throat cancer stole his ability to speak without one; he also has half a jheri curl and all the activator-related messiness that comes with it.

This is the most lowbrow character Perry has ever given us, and your mileage may vary on whether you find him offensive or not; I found him completely extraneous, but I did laugh when Madea said the vibrations from his voice could give her an orgasm. I know, I know. Bad Odie. But if you were expecting polite humor, you’re at the wrong theater.

“Completely extraneous” is also how I would describe several scenes in this movie, especially one where Madea and company are stopped by the cops starts off promising with the cop freaking out at a car full of black people, but it goes nowhere and feels interminable but that’s always been Perry’s problem: “A Madea Family Funeral” overstays its welcome at 102 minutes if his movies clocked in at about 80 minutes they’d play better there’s always a feeling like his movies are spinning their wheels to make some kind of running-time quota things that are this tasteless need to move faster.

No matter. I did indeed laugh out loud many times, and was captivated by Vianne’s big “what’s good for the goose” style speech at the end; if “A Madea Family Funeral” is indeed the final “Hallelu YUHRRR” for Madea, it’s not that shabby of an exit you might not miss her, but it does feel like she exited the scene on her own terms for better and worse.

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