Meet the Browns is a tolerable albeit thoroughly bland effort by Tyler Perry, that manages to touch on sensitive, vital issues in the black community but also shortchange a great deal of those involved in the community into broad forgettable caricatures. Concerning the Brown family, as the title suggests, the film follows single-mother Brenda (Angela Bassett) living in Chicago with her oldest son Michael (Lance Gross) in high school and her two young daughters.
One day, Brenda receives a death notice that states the father she has never met has died. Upon losing her job after the executives decide to pull the plug on her business's entire operation, Brenda packs up the kids and sets off for Georgia, quickly discovering the side of the family she never knew existed. Brenda is welcomed with open arms to meet a good-natured clan known as the Brown family, which also provide her with a release from Chicago's hectic environment and introduce her to the slower ways of Georgia.
Meet the Browns is sufficient for both basic cable entertainment in addition to Tyler Perry's filmography, which always seems to find ways to incorporate more and more questionable film entries in there. If anything, the basic structure I just gave you is what the film manages to set up best; what it unfortunately does is squander relationships in the film in favor of too many pale and broad plotstrands that do nothing but muddle themes. There are various characters in Meet the Browns and they're all drawn very broadly, and their problems are never narrowed down to fit something that feels more human. Perry paints in broadstrokes here when he should be refining detail.
Having said that, Meet the Browns does a nice job at telling us (or maybe reminding some) that there is a vicious cycle in the black community that is sad but true. It's the cycle of a teenager dropping out of school for momentary income to support a family but only getting wrapped up in a dirty, gritty business that seems to be trying to find new ways to kill you or finding themselves living paycheck-to-paycheck. This cycle is acknowledged when Michael, the ambitious basketball player who is in the middle of being hounded and recruited to college teams, offers to get a job while working in high school. Brenda, however, worries that his hours and paycheck will overshadow the importance of education and studies and he'll fall down this path of directionless behavior.
When Perry finds underlying issues in the black community to bring up is when he's strong; when he's busy generalizing the community is when he's weak. Perry always seems to mean well but finds ways to dilute, skew, or completely contradict his own intended message and that has been his drawback from day one. However, with Meet the Browns, he hit a goldmine in terms of popularity, eventually incorporating the film's premise and characters into Perry's second sitcom, which went on to do solid numbers on Television. People obviously see things in Meet the Browns and its comedic/dramatic leverage that I have yet to find; wouldn't be the first time.
Starring: Angela Bassett and Lance Gross. Directed by: Tyler Perry.
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