Meet the Browns
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Metascore
45 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 14 Critics What's this?

User Score
6.1 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 24 Ratings

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  • Starring: Angela Bassett, Tamela J. Mann, Tyler Perry
  • Summary: A single mother living in inner-city Chicago, Brenda has been struggling for years to make ends meet and keep her three kids off the street. But when she's laid off with no warning, she starts losing hope for the first time--until a letter arrives announcing the death of a father she's never met. Desperate for any kind of help, Brenda takes her family to Georgia for the funeral. But nothing could have prepared her for the Browns, her father's fun-loving, crass Southern clan. In a small-town world full of long afternoons and country fairs, Brenda struggles to get to know the family she never knew existed...and finds a brand-new romance that just might change her life. (Lionsgate)… Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 14
  2. Mixed: 9 out of 14
  3. Negative: 3 out of 14
  1. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    67
    The importance of faith, church, kin, staying off drugs, sharing food, repenting from sin, forgiving sinners, appreciating a good black man, rejecting a bad one, and honoring black matriarchy is enumerated with typical, reassuring Perry broadness.
  2. Variety
    Reviewed by: Joe Leydon
    60
    Often plays more like "Tyler Perry's Greatest Hits" as it recycles various elements from the writer-director's earlier works.
  3. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: A.O. Scott
    60
    What he serves up -- a mixture of moralism and forgiveness, semibawdy humor and cautionary drama, mockery and affection -- may sometimes lack coherence, but never integrity.
  4. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Nathan Rabin
    33
    Browns is ultimately a victim of its creator's success: What once felt novel now feels well-worn, following the success of Perry's films and imitators like "First Sunday."

See all 14 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 8
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 8
  3. Negative: 3 out of 8
  1. Jordan
    10
    I thought it was great. Great story, not overdone. Good job, Tyler Perry.
  2. TheateraNerd
    10
    Give credit to Tyler Perry for not glamorizing drug dealing, criminal activities, selfish actions and the like. Tyler Perry advocates practical Christian and family values, and it ends up making a masterpiece! I love this movie as well as every other Tyler Perry films! Of course as expected critics underestimate ANOTHER great movie by Tyler Perry. Of course people will rate this movie low because they're JEALOUS that Tyler Perry is so wealthy and succesfull! Remember jealousy is a sin!!!...… Collapse
  3. JamieJ.
    10
    Lots of down home southern laughter.
  4. ChadS.
    3
    Filmmaker Tyler Perry is the Kurt Cobain of American cinema. Like "Nevermind", Perry's films perform beyond the niche market it was intended for. 2002 became the year "black film" broke, when "Diary of a Mad, Black Woman" grossed over fifty-million dollars, a then-unprecednted sum for a black independent film. Perry's movies are mainstream, but make no mistake about it, "Meet the Browns" is a "cult film" at its core, like Nirvana was an "alternative" band, who suddenly became wildly popular. While other indies enjoy wide-release success, the Perry oeuvre differs in this very important respect: The audience that Perry caters to is often a disenfranchised one. We're talking about African-American women. "Meet the Browns" is a black chick-flick. In the last six years, Perry has created his own private Hollywood by being a blaxploitation director who makes respectable films for a middle-brow audience. With "Meet the Browns", Perry alienates the fanbase, in a scene, in which the oldest son of the family patriarch refers to his father's women as "hos", in a naked attempt to be all things to all people. Being black himself, Brown should realize that no respectable "gangsta" would be caught dead at "Meet the Browns", so why rankle the converted with a street lexicon? In another scene, Madea is being chased by a convoy of police squad vehicles and excitedly proclaims, "I'm going to be on "Cops"!" This is Chapelle-lite. This is like Wayne Brady's performance as a gangbanger on "The Dave Chapelle Show". Perry is satirizing his own "vanilla" image by being an outlaw. But gangsta rap and incarceration infringes on the fantasy aspect of a single mother of three who goes to Georgia and lives happily-ever-after. That's not what the audience paid for.… Expand

See all 8 User Reviews

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