Tyler Perry’s Madea has long been a rough shelter in the storm for an assortment of outcasts and miscreants in need of tough love, so in Witness Protection, she’s taking in a Wall Street investment banker (Eugene Levy) and his family who are on the lam from the mob. The cross-cultural mash-up is old hat and likely stale, but somehow you just know that Perry’s audience will remain loyal.  

Ntozake Shange's stage play used a series of poems, told in a bracingly bare spoken word format by women, black women, identified by the colors of the rainbow, who endured the abuses of life, the daily trials and tribulations. Unfortunately, an able cast is let down in Tyler Perry's film adaptation via his inability to frame things in any way outside his rudimentary narrative boxes. Grade: D-plus.