Brian, by contrast, is a good-looking, serious minded husband and father coping with his wife's drug addiction. Despite annoying overuse of her pistol prop, even under house arrest, Madea is a fun, larger than life character. The screenwriter, who has played the character of Madea on stage (she's featured in a few of his plays), clearly has on screen talent. Perry even caps his story with an ending straight out of "An Officer and a Gentleman" just for good measure. Orlando, on the other hand, is a steel worker who labors twelve hours a day, has a taste for pricey jazz clubs and doesn't believe in sex before marriage! Grant lets Perry's script dictate a wildly uneven tone, allowing the film to careen from gushy romance to slapstick to Debrah's uplifting, stuck-on redemption subplot (which culminates in a Church scene that must be seen to be believed). Charles is such a cold fish that it is impossible to envision a time when he was a good husband. Perry, who must be commended for the humorous character of Madea (a contraction of 'mother dear'), in addition to playing Madea's brother Tom and their nephew Brian, has written a script that would make most soap operas look subtle. Sparks eventually fly, but when Charles is shot by a drug lord and abandoned by Brenda, Helen, not yet divorced, rushes back to her old life. After raising some ruckus at Charles', Madea throws a party that enables Helen to reconnect with cousin Brian (Perry again), the attorney married to Debrah, who 'introduces' her to Orlando (Shemar Moore, TV's "The Young and the Restless"), the guy who Charles hired to clear her out of his home. She's astonished to discover her old good friend Debrah (Tamara Taylor, "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge") is now a junkie. Charles has cut Helen off from her family over the years, but after driving around all night in the moving van her husband helpfully hired for her, Helen arrives at Madea's (Perry), who immediately begins plotting revenge and waving her pistol around. The next day, Helen is literally dragged kicking and screaming out of her home because Charles has decided to move in the mother of his children (Lisa Marcos, TV's "Kevin Hill," as Brenda). Charles blows kisses from the podium accepting the Bob Feinstein attorney of the year award, then drops Helen off at home saying he has to return to the office. Her husband runs cold in private and hot in public, and is caught in his office with a much younger white woman and racially mixed child that his assistants are trying to shield her from. The end results is something like "Waiting to Exhale" crossed with "Nutty Professor II: The Klumps" and "Big Momma's House." "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" is one of those movies that's so jaw-droppingly ridiculous that it becomes entertaining. He's adapted his popular 2000 play, put it into the hands of Destiny's Child video director Darren Grant and given himself three roles. Playwright Tyler Perry, whose palatial Atlanta manse stands in for the McCarter estate, is living proof that there's no accounting for taste.
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