Madea Goes to Jail Information

Madea Goes to Jail is a 2009 comedy-drama film written and directed by Tyler Perry, which was based on his 2006 play. The play and the film deal with Perry's signature character Madea going to prison for her uncontrollable anger management problems.

Plot

After a high-speed freeway police chase (seen in Meet the Browns) results in Mabel "Madea" Simmons' arrest, she is placed in an anger management course, and admits her permanent license suspension. Returning home from court, Madea finds a party taking place in her house hosted by her brother, Joe Simmons, who is trying to cheer up Madea. However, Madea is not amused by the festivities and uses a machine gun to scare the party goers away.

Madea consults with Doctor Phil McGraw for anger management, but does not cooperate with McGraw. Returning home, Madea, needing to buy groceries, calls Cora to drive her to the store, but Cora declines, angering Madea. Joe predicts that Madea will get into trouble if she goes to the store, but Madea ignores him and goes anyway, driving in her car. At Kmart, a woman steals the parking space that Madea was about to take, so she commandeers a forklift truck to remove the woman's car from the space, wrecking the car in the process. Madea is arrested and brought to court again, where Judge Greg Mathis sentences her to prison for five to ten years.

Meanwhile, assistant district attorney Joshua Hardaway is on the fast track to career success. He is prosecuting a young prostitute and drug addict, Candace "Candy" Washington, with whom he is already acquainted. Josh asks his fiance and fellow ADA Linda Davis to fill in on his behalf, but when Josh takes Candy out to eat and gives her his business card in order for her to contact him for future assistance, Linda fears Josh may be cheating on her. Linda threatens to leave Josh, telling him that he should only socialize with a higher class of people.

Just before Madea's trial, Ellen asks Josh how he knows Candace. He tells Ellen that they were close friends from childhood through college, until one night when he took her to a party. He ended up going on a date and leaving Candace behind at the party, where a group of his friends gang raped her in his absence, for which Josh continues to harbor deep-seated guilt. After Josh asks Ellen to help Candace, Ellen gets her a job interview, but it results in sexual harassment by the interviewer, who Candace kicks in the groin before storming out.

At the district attorney's office, Josh's best friend, Chuck, runs into Linda and discovers that she is falsifying Candace's file to deliberately get her sent to prison and away from Josh, a practice she has been engaged with other defendants as well, including Madea and Candace's friend Donna. Linda tells him to keep his mouth shut or she'll tell the head A.D.A. that Chuck cheated on his bar exam to get his job. Candace returns to prostitution, until she is arrested by an undercover policeman. Due to Linda's falsifying of her file, the judge gives her a seventeen-year prison sentence.

When Candace ends up in prison, she discovers that Donna and Madea are there as well. Madea is shocked when she meets her cellmate, a seemingly insane serial killer named T.T., who is serving a life sentence for murdering 18 men.

While in prison, Madea befriends Candace, and comes to her defense when she is sexually harassed by Big Sal. Candace, Madea, T.T., and Donna attend a class taught by Ellen at the prison, in order to have time reduced from their sentences. During a lesson about forgiveness, Madea notices that some of the inmates would rather play victim instead of taking the blame for their crimes. She tells the class they need to stop seeing themselves as victims and forgive those who led them on the bad paths they've been on, as they weren't the ones who ended up in jail. Candace is moved by her words, and during a visit with Josh, she admits that back when she was raped at the party he took her to, she called his name repeatedly as the attack happened, but he never came for her. Candace held on to her anger at him for so long, she forgot how to move on, which resulted in her dropping out of school and becoming a drug addict and prostitute. But with everything she learned from Ellen and Madea, she finally decides to forgive Josh and pick up the pieces of her life.

On Josh's wedding day, Chuck, serving as best man, tells him that Linda falsified Candace's file. During the ceremony, Josh tells the congregation, including his and Linda's boss, what Linda has done, and jilts her. Josh then rushes to the prison where he admits to Candace that he loves her. Because of the now-revealed news of Linda's tampering with client files, there is a public outcry and a protest movement gains momentum to set Madea, Candace, and the others free. Candace, Madea, Donna and four other women that Linda prosecuted have their convictions overturned and are released while Linda inevitably faces arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment on multiple charges including fraud, evidence tampering and providing false legal documents.

Cast

• Tyler Perry as Mabel "Madea" Simmons, Uncle Joe Simmons and Brian Simmons
• Derek Luke as Joshua Hardaway
• Keshia Knight Pulliam as Candace "Candy" Washington-Collins
• Ion Overman as Linda Davis
• Tamela Mann as Cora Simmons
• David Mann as Mr. Brown
• Viola Davis as Ellen St. Matthews
• Vanessa Ferlito as Donna
• Sofa Vergara as T.T.
• RonReaco Lee as Chuck Decatur
• Bobbi Baker as Tanya
• Jackson Walker as Mr. Brackman
• Robin Coleman as Big Sal

Cameos

• Phil McGraw as Dr. Phil (Himself)
• Mablean Ephriam as Judge Mablean (Herself)
• Greg Mathis as Judge Mathis (Himself)
• Al Sharpton as Himself
• Whoopi Goldberg as Herself
• Sherri Shepherd as Herself
• Elisabeth Hasselbeck as Herself
• Joy Behar as Herself
• Tom Joyner as Himself
• Steve Harvey as Himself
• Michael Baisden as Himself
• Frank Ski as Himself
• India Arie as Herself

Release

Critical reception

The film received mixed reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 30% based on 50 reviews, with an average score of 4.9/10. The consensus says, "Divided between sincere melodrama and populist comedy, Madea Goes to Jail fails to provide enough laughs - or screen time - for its titular heroine." Another review aggretator, Metacritic, gives the film a score of 50%, based on 13 reviews.

Sam Adams of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 2.5/4 stars and wrote that "if the movie is a mess, it's a purposeful mess, cannily, if not artfully, pushing all the right buttons to ensure Perry will be back for another round."

According to a New York Times review, the film gives Madea herself a much more central role than some of the previous Madea movies, in some of which she is merely a commentator on events.

The Boston Globe reported that "(Madea's) character epitomizes Perry's ongoing commitment to dramatizing as many rungs on the ladder of the black experience as he can. His aim never produces a completely satisfying or consistently competent-looking movie (his heart's in the right place, if not his camerawork)."

Box office

On its opening weekend, the film opened at #1, and grossed $41,030,947 (2,032 theaters, $20,192 average), the biggest Friday to Sunday take since Twilight in November 2008. It broke Madea's Family Reunion weekend gross at $30 million as the highest weekend gross for a Tyler Perry film. It broke Saw IIIs record at $33 million for the highest weekend gross for Lionsgate Entertainment. "We were cautiously optimistic we could do 30-plus," Steve Rothenberg said. On its second weekend, it dropped 61 percent, but remained at #1 grossing another $16,175,926 (2,052 theaters, $7,883 average), bringing the 10-day gross to $64,525,548. The film closed on April 23, 2009 with a final domestic gross of $90,508,336.

Home media

An exclusive preview was included on the cinematic release of Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys.

Madea Goes to Jail was released on June 16, 2009 on DVD. According to DVDTown, the DVD included six behind-the-scenes featurettes. As of July 12, 2009, 1,125,422 DVD units have been sold, gathering revenue of $18,223,621. A Blu-ray version was released on November 23, 2010.