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'Diary of a Mad Black Woman'

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Just as Hong Kong martial arts movies operate under their own set of rules and have their own core audience, so does "Diary of a Mad Black Woman," Tyler Perry's adaptation of his phenomenally successful play of the same name.

Perry has made a fortune ($70 million according to Newsweek) writing for what he himself has called the chitlin' circuit, a genre that is often also referred to as gospel stage plays. For fans of Perry, "Diary" is precisely what they expect and will enjoy -- a high-minded melodrama joined at the hip with low-comedy, borderline vulgar shenanigans.

Lions Gate Films

'Diary of a Mad Black Woman'

C+

The verdict: This is the kind of thing you'll like, if you like this kind of thing.

Director: Darren Grant
Starring: Kimberly Elise, Shemar Moore and Tyler Perry
Run time: 116 minutes
Release date: Feb. 25, 2005
Rating: PG-13 for drug content, thematic elements, crude sexual references and some violence
See showtimes

On the web
Official movie site
View the trailer
-- Trailers require Quicktime

Those unfamiliar with Perry's work may find the movie's over-the-top style and abrupt transitions from, say, a shooting in a courtroom that leaves one character paralyzed to a broadly played scene about smoking marijuana, well, jarring. Further, as is true of so many play adaptations, the theatrically pitched performances don't work as well on the screen.

Our diary-keeping black woman is Helen (gorgeous Kimberly Elise), a good wife leading the (apparent) good life with her husband, Charles (Steve Harris), a powerful Atlanta attorney who hypocritically treats her a lot better in public than private.

Helen has been able to cope so far. Until, that is, Charles shows up on their 18th anniversary with his booty-licious mistress and kicks Helen out of the house. Literally.

Dazed and confused and homeless, she movies back in with her pistol-toting potty-mouthed grandmother figure, Madea (played by Perry in drag as a kind of cross between Dame Edna and any given Klump) and her raunchy, pot-smoking grandfather figure, Joe (also Perry). Her mother (Cicely Tyson), who lives in the nursing home Charles insisted she be moved to, isn't on screen as much. But she does get one of the best lines: When dirty-old-man Joe grins and says, "I got Viagra," she snaps back, "I got mace."

There are a lot of very funny lines in "Diary." Perry is an accomplished comedy writer with a sassy style and no qualms whatsoever about upsetting whomever he likes. When the courtroom is cleared after the shooting, the judge says, "Next case. City of Atlanta vs. Bobby Brown," adding, "Sit down , Miss Houston."

The movie's message -- that faith will get you through -- is a welcome one and one not heard often out of Hollywood. But Perry's religious affirmation doesn't always make an easy fit with the often-profane humor or the overblown soap-operalike plot. Further, the high-camp world inhabited by Madea doesn't seem to belong in the same movie as a tender romance (between Elise and handsome Shemar Moore of "The Young and the Restless") or a realistically rendered subplot centering on Helen's drug-addict relative (a very fine Tamara Taylor).

However, the if-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it philosophy has served Perry well. There's a large audience hungry for his work. And director Darren Grant makes Atlanta look so slick and exciting and glamorous, the Chamber of Commerce should hire him immediately.