I think this is my favorite Tyler Perry movie! It's good for anyone with a heart for romance, comedy & conflict resolution. And to think it's almost 10 years old from when I'm writing this review. Tyler Perry was/is so ahead of his time & in-tune with the pulse on a movie market which has been ignored for so long. The film has romance, comedy,a message about forgiveness along with conflict and resolution! It made me cry, it made me laugh and while I think it's a strong 'chick' flick it still has great male role models as well forgiving the selfish butt heads of the world. I love the dynamic tension between those we love, those we use, those we hate as well as those we forgive. The good guys win and the bad guys are redeemed,but not before their lesson is learned. I've seen this film a dozen times and can't wait to see it again!

I didn't know what to expect. I'd heard mixed things, mostly from non-film types.This movie was really bad. I couldn't get past the first 20 minutes.The writing was dreadful. I want to say the acting was dreadful - but I don't think the actors had much to work with.TP's movies have attained some financial success. I think this can be attributed to a devoted black audience. Which I completely understand. There aren't many writer/directors in the world, and if one happens to be black, and makes movies about black life in America, he's going to attract a black audience.But overall, Tyler Perry is just not a very talented writer. But he may have future as an actor.

What a strange little film this is. This film has several parts that most definitely do not fit as a cohesive whole, vacillating wildly from preaching Christian values, to maudlin soap opera, to revenge to cheap sex-and-drug jokes. None of these are done particularly well, all shallow, generic and overdone, but, preposterously, the fact that it's such a Frankenstein's monster of poorly-done styles and that it shifts so frequently makes it far more standable than had it just picked a bad style and ran with it.The film at large is ALL climax. Every single scene, and damn near every single line is either melodramatic exclamation or a punchline that could end every conceivable "MadTV" sketch. Every line is slopping crafted to elicit an outburst from its audience, be it an "Mmhmm!" or an "Amen". This is a film that just wants to please its audience, to the point that it thinks it's appropriate to bookend an emotional discussion about a family member who has descended into the hell of drugs...with a scene of a woman on lithium smoking a joint and throwing herself into the yard to escape imaginary rabbits. It wants to get a reaction from every scene, it wants you to either be crying or laughing at every single moment of the film, tears flowing regardless of the reaction.Plot-wise, the film deals with Helen (Kimberly Elise) who as the film starts, is being put out on the street by her husband of 18 years (Steve Harris) as he reveals that he has children with some skank chica. She goes and becomes reacquainted with pistol-packing granny Medea (Tyler Perry) and the rest of her family, in the meantime falling in love with nice guy Orlando (Shemar Moore). But once her soon-to-be-ex-husband is crippled by a hit, she has to choose how she cares for this man that she still loves but threw her out on her ass.Kimberly Elise does her DAMNEDEST to make a real character out of this, and she's the only character that seems genuinely amazed that she's in this cinematic life, between the shock of the crazy break-up, and the voice-over shock that the guy she's with isn't doing SOMETHING wrong. The rest of the cast doesn't really do much. Shemar Moore has some good chemistry but is mostly the rebound guy, while Steve Harris is TERRIBLE in his delivery, enforcing his character as the cipher Type he is. The rest of the cast is seemingly played by Tyler Perry, including ridiculously over-the-top comic Plot Mechanism Grandma Medea, and his experience on the theater shows through, as it yells every line from every character, seemingly playing to the old ladies in the back of the theatre who are hard of hearing. I'm a bit surprised that Tyler Perry didn't direct, considering music video director Grant shows none of the flourish of music video directors, but none of the surehandedness of someone better. The film is mostly simple point-and-shoot, and Perry could easily have done it, as he apparently did for the sequels and all the other things in the Perry empire.It's a film designed for a specific group of people (middle-class churchgoing black folk), and its three-headed style monster and its basic emotional conceits make it remarkably easy to watch, and each and every scene seems to be either genuinely entertaining in a trashy sort of way, or unintentionally entertaining...in a trashy sort of way. Well, trashy in an upstanding Christian sort of way. In the sort of way that...uh...well...oh, what the hell? {Grade: 5.5/10 (C+/C) / #38 (of 62) of 2005}

I recently came upon this movie while surfing channels in my Jamaica hotel room. The movie was about 30 seconds in, so I thought I'd give it a try. My first impression was one of utter disappointment. The writing, acting, and directing were at a glance completely awful. But I thought I'd stick with it; maybe it would get better. And I have to say, by the end, I hadn't changed my mind. And heres why: The characters. Every single character in the film was completely unbelievable, and I could not relate with any of them. Now I know some of the characters were meant to be ridiculous, but not to the extent they were. Lets take Helen. The star of the whole movie, the one you are supposed to root for. She's the most moody woman on the planet, shes vindictive, mean, snappy. And why Orlando would vie for her love after she treated him the way she did all throughout the movie is beyond me.Now let's take the crack head mother. What was her name again? I don't remember because she was on screen for an upwards of 3 minutes. So, at the end of the film, she spends one, yes, ONE night in rehab, sings a gospel tune, and is completely cleansed of her addiction. Now, I've seen sappy, ridiculous endings a lot, but this one was unbearable. The over the top Christian undertone (or was it meant to be an overtone?) was completely unnecessary, and took away from the film. The line "Im a good Christian woman" In one of the diary narrative scenes was out of place, and had no effect other than to try and draw in a Christian audience.Overall, this movie was bad. One of the worst movies I've ever seen, to be sure.