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75Was it just three years ago that Perry made his feature debut with "Diary of a Mad Black Woman?" Then his filmmaking was strictly amateur; now his sweeping pans and portentous closeups approach those of Pedro Almódovar.
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75Thanks to some first-rate acting from its stars, it ranks among Perry's best.
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Woodard conveys the rock-solid values of a true Christian without ever falling into sappiness. Bates is enjoyably larger-than-life, as the role requires.
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Dude, what made you refuse to screen your film for critics before it opened Friday? I'm betting you would have received an earful of praise for your writing and directing.
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70Bates and Woodard strike up a real dynamic, and picture gives the duo room to improvise, leading to one raucous scene after another as they Thelma-and-Louise it in a top-down convertible.
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Perry's notoriously overstuffed plots have sometimes been top-heavy, but this movie, like Woody Allen's "Hannah and Her Sisters," hangs on an elegant structure that doesn't feel forced.
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All over the place:It's a boardroom/family/couples/road-trip story.
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Perry deserves due respect for exploiting an untapped niche.
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50Though better than most of Perry's broad comedies, The Family That Preys still suffers from excessive predictability and mawkish sentiment, which detracts from the story's believability.
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50What's memorable here is the sparkling chemistry between Bates and Woodard, whose scenes together are a pleasure to watch, even as one thinks that their next outing should be to co-teach a master class entitled, "How To Rise Above Cliché."
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40Contradictions abound in this messy and unfocused drama that purports to believe that family is everything, when all else fails.
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40The usual mawkishness is made slightly more palatable by the two leads and by Perry himself.
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38Family, sadly, is a plate of leftovers: a bland, baldly written melodrama about two longtime best friends and their messed-up families.
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30The suds that cascade through Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys more than equal the cubic footage from nighttime soaps like "Dallas," "Dynasty" and their offspring.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 26 out of 28
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Mixed: 0 out of 28
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Negative: 2 out of 28
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10
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LawrenceT10Perry's best so far. Positive reviews.
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MichelleJ.9