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Saturday, February 25, 2012

MOVIE REVIEW
Tyler Perry's Good Deeds
Milking Melodrama And Fable In Perry's San Francisco

Tyler Perry as Wesley Deeds and Brian White as Walter Deeds in "Tyler Perry's Good Deeds".  Lionsgate
    
by Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com        Follow popcornreel on Twitter FOLLOW                                           
Saturday, February 25, 2012

 "Tyler Perry's Good Deeds", which opened yesterday in the U.S. and Canada without prior press screenings as is customary for Mr. Perry, marks a rare departure from the farcical, cartoonish exploits of the multi-hyphenate director's signature movie character.  Shot in Atlanta and set in San Francisco -- represented by impressive but sometimes unsteady second-unit digital shots of the Northern California Bay Area city -- "Good Deeds" is a variation on the Mr. Deeds story. 

Wesley Deeds (Mr. Perry) is a man born into privilege, running through the world on auto-pilot, going through the motions as a CEO of The Deeds Corporation, a company Wesley's late father charged him with the responsibility of running.  Wesley has a troubled brother and company loyalist Walter (Brian White) whose ambition it is to take over someday.  Wesley's personal life seems good: he's engaged to Natalie (Gabrielle Union), who predicts his every move.  It's not only Natalie's sharp intuition; Wesley really is a predictable sort.  For Wesley things will shift like the tectonic plates of the San Andreas Fault as he comes into contact with a homeless woman and single mother named Lindsey (Thandie Newton) who is employed as a night janitor at TDC.

"Good Deeds", about transition and breaking tradition and expectation, has a good heart and soul but the flimsy architecture around it dents its ambition of being a solid, cohesive drama.  Mr. Perry's strong stage background seems to hurt "Good Deeds" because of needless theatrics and one-note characters who are overacted or poorly acted.  The theater stage is so expansive and open, and there such expressions and gestures fit perfectly.  In film however, every inflection is magnified.  Moreover, "Good Deeds" is a drama, not a Madea comedy, so emotive moments need to be smaller and more carefully manufactured.  Regrettably, they aren't, and much of the warmth and well-meaning aspects of this quiet, gentle film are destroyed by over emoting, poor editing and an abruptness that shreds any genuine designs Mr. Perry has. 

The only level of theater the director himself engages in on screen is in a scene that lightens the film's calm, pedestrian demeanor.  "Good Deeds" takes a while to warm up and get going, then pours on the sugar, sweetness and sparkle too much, too soon and too late.

Of all the actors on display in "Good Deeds" only Gabrielle Union gets it right: her performance has balance, a sense of patience, and doesn't feel caricatured.  Phylicia Rashad is good early on as Wilimena, the ice-cold matriarch of the Deeds family.  Her withering glares, succinct enunciations and pauses are enough to transfix and cut down any worthy adversary, even if that adversary is her younger son Walter, whom as played by Mr. White is made of pure histrionics.  Bedeviled by alcohol, Walter is never calm, ever.  Mr. Perry needed to put Walter on tranquilizers.  There's a winning performance however, by Jordenn Thompson as Ariel, Lindsey's precocious six-year-old daughter.  Your heart melts as the talented Miss Thompson shines.

Of course there's a level of transparency and obviousness to "Good Deeds" that is readily apparent on the surface alone: the casting of Thandie Newton, writhing in facial agony as the homeless Lindsey, is far from accident, nor is the film's nominal setting of San Francisco.  Ms. Newton was the shrill, facially-contorted, unforgiving hotel worker wife of Will Smith in Gabriele Mucchino's "The Pursuit Of Happyness", which featured Mr. Smith and his son Jaden homeless in San Francisco.  Mr. Smith portrayed Chris Gardner, a man obviously without privilege who ended up making his own way against the odds to become a successful millionaire businessman and philanthropist, a Mr. Deeds in reverse.

With "Good Deeds" Mr. Perry gives an admirable college try at drama but you can see that he misses Madea more than he himself might admit.

With: Eddie Cibrian, Rebecca Romijn, Jamie Kennedy, Beverly Johnson.

"Good Deeds" is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association Of America for sexual content, language, some violence and thematic material.  The film's running time is one hour and 51 minutes.
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