"Tyler Perry's Good Deeds" Plot Review

    Tyler Perry, come on down! You the next contestant on Your Movie Sucks! This is Tyler Perry's Good Deeds!

     I'm gonna tell you a little behind-the-scenes fact about Cinema Won. When I watch a movie on DVD, which I normally get through Netflix (Product placement!), it may be a few days before I get around to actually reviewing it. Sometimes I review them the next day and sometimes, due to one reason or another, it might take me a week until I review the movie. That happened when I went to review the newest Ghost Rider a few weeks ago. Over a week had past and I still remembered enough of the movie to review it. I watched Good Deeds less than two days ago and can't remember a damn thing about it. That's not a good sign.
    Now, since I am neither a black woman with children or Tyler Perry, I'm not exactly in the wheelhouse to enjoy Tyler Perry's movies. This is, after all, the first of his films I have ever seen. I'm not impressed. Now, I'm going to do something a little different with this film. As the title says this is a "Plot Review". Though I don't remember much about it, I'll try to run through the plot as best as I can. Hopefully, this will take what would have been an otherwise short review and extend it a little. Wish me luck. Spoiler Warning from this point on.
    Good Deeds follows Wesley Deeds (You guessed it, Tyler Perry), the rich CEO of software company The Deeds Corporation (Very creative Tyler). His life has been spelled out to him since he was born. I guess. The film never really shows this. After his father dies, Wesley becomes the head of the company, much to the resentment of Walter (Brian White), his alcoholic, d-bag brother. We're told that Wesley does a great job of running his company. This is hard to believe however, because Wesley is a complete pushover that lets Walter insult their workers and clients on a regular basis. A person like that probably wouldn't get ahead is business.  Oh, I should also mention that this film opens with one of my ultimate film pet peeves. The film opens with Wesley narrating with morning routine, telling us all about his privileged life. The film never uses this narration again in the film. This upsets me to no end, because using narration to say exposition is incredibly lazy writing.

Would making a "Brother" joke be racist?

     Anyway, he's also engaged to Natalie (Gabrielle Union). They don't really love each other like that but because everybody else thinks they're perfect, they go along with it. Wesley's life takes a turn when he meet single mother Lindsey (Thandie Newton). Lindsey and her daughter Ariel (Jordenn Thompson) are homeless after getting evicted from their apartment. Lindsey tries a homeless shelter, but almost gets raped, so that option's out. She pulls double shifts as the janitor at the Deeds HQ and starts to live in her car. She meets Wesley when she accidentally pulls into his parking spot, much to the fury of Walter. Seriously, Walter is meant to be sympathetic, but is just a completely unlikable character with no motivation for being this angry other than the fact that the film needs to have an angry character.
    Wesley and Lindsey strike up a friendship. Wesley buys them pizza and gives them a company apartment when child services nearly takes Ariel away. Pretty much, Perry is playing out a "Hero-Rich-Guy" fantasy. After all, women can't fend for themselves. I mean, Lindsey tries to take care of herself and Ariel alone and she almost gets raped! Looks like a rich man has to save the day. Again. Ugh.
    Lindsey help Wesley open up by, despite being homeless, getting him a motorcycle and spending the entire day riding around a country side that is probably nowhere near Los Angeles. This magical ride is enough to make Wesley want to have his own life. So, him and Natalie agree not to get married and he hands the reins of the company over to his business partner John (Eddie Cibrain). By the way, John's wife Heidi is played by X-Men star Rebecca Romijn. It's like I planned this or something. Wesley's mother Wilimena (Phylicia Rashad) apologizes to Wesley for controlling his life and Walter vows to clean up his act. But what about his romance with Lindsey!?!
    Wesley is planning on going to Africa and riding his motorcycle around digging wells. Because, after all, Tyler Perry, I mean, Wesley is a saint and digging wells in Africa is just the kind of thing saints do. He asks Lindsey and Ariel to come with him, but Lindsey declines. The film ends with Wesley arriving at the airport, waiting to see if Lindsey shows up. What's going to happen? Is Lindsey going to not come? Is Wesley going to move on and go to Africa? Nope! Turns out Lindsey and Ariel were on the plane the whole time! Forget about the fact that Lindsey could never have gotten her passports and shots in just the 6 hours she knew about Wesley's plan. The moral of the story is that it's okay to pull your six-year old daughter out of school and take her to freaking Africa as long as Mr. Right is there with you. And ladies, don't forget. You can never fend for yourselves and have to wait for a man to come help you. The end!

"It's alright. Black Superman is here
to save us!"

    Ugh. Just, UGH. I've always wondered what goes into making the most boring and pretentious movie of the year. Seriously. This movie is awful. How did no one notice that? The actors seems to have, seeing as how they all phone it in. Seriously. How can a movie with this terrible of a message get released and have no one stop to say "Gee, maybe saying that women need a man to help them is a little inappropriate". At best, the best thing about this movie is that it's so forgettable that you won't remember much of it anyway, so who cares? Tyler Perry's Good Deeds gets 1 and a half stars out of 6.