Talk about a movie being DRAGGED down

I'd been hearing how bad this film is ever since it was released, and I'd been waiting for it to appear on cable so I could see for myself; couldn't believe it was as bad as all the critics had been saying. But guess what? This time, they were on the money.

Starts out good enough, with Kimberly Elise and her scuzzo husband Steve Harris - their marriage is on the skids because he's - well, a scuzzo - but very soon thereafter, her 'grandmother' Madea appears, in the form of writer/director Tyler Perry, playing the part (along with 2 other parts, all thoroughly unnecessary and pointless). From this moment on, the film is dragged down, literally and figuratively, and it never recovers.

If Perry wants to do a farce starring himself as Madea, that's fine. I believe he's done this already; there's Madea's Family Reunion, and Madea's Class Reunion. Wonderful. I might want to see them someday. But to take a possibly decent film and destroy it by the inclusion of this ridiculous character is just plain dumb. How this got released, in fact, is beyond me. I'm giving it a 2 because some of the performances were far better than the film deserves, including Kimberly Elise's characterization of the semi-pitiful Helen, who manages to pull herself back to dignity the end of this schizoid debacle.