Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns

Repackaged stereotypes

Meet the Browns

Brenda (Angela Bassett) is a newly jobless mother of three, and she’s getting no child support from her baby daddies. When the father she never met passes away, she hauls her kids from Chicago to backwoods Georgia for the funeral, hoping to inherit something juicy. No surprise, her wacky, long-lost family prove too much to handle, delivering one-liners and mild stereotypes repackaged from previous Tyler Perry fare. Former Celtic Rick Fox serves as the love interest, a basketball talent scout who sees potential in Brenda’s teenage son. Perry once again confronts serious issues with sensitivity (even given his merely adequate direction), but his overstuffed script, designed to appeal to every conceivable demographic, fails to say anything remotely original. Worse, the film’s melodrama and its humor seem to inhabit two distinct worlds, like quiet and loud tenants who live in the same apartment building. Decent by Perry standards, but still not great. 100 minutes | Boston Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + Circle + suburbs