Average Rating: 5.8/10
Reviews Counted: 41
Fresh: 21 | Rotten: 20
Tyler Perry's The Family that Preys treads the filmmaker's established terrain of family loyalty and moral uprightness, though the occasionally predictable plot slides forward, aided by an excess of soapy melodrama.
Average Rating: 6/10
Critic Reviews: 11
Fresh: 7 | Rotten: 4
Tyler Perry's The Family that Preys treads the filmmaker's established terrain of family loyalty and moral uprightness, though the occasionally predictable plot slides forward, aided by an excess of soapy melodrama.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.9/5
User Ratings: 37,354
Add Rotten Tomatoes to your Facebook Timeline and get a full-length movie from Flixster!
The gift movie added to
your Flixster Collection is...
Alfre Woodard and Kathy Bates star in writer/director Tyler Perry's family drama about an upper-crust family and their working-class counterparts, who discover that scandal knows no social boundaries. Charlotte Cartwright (Bates) and Alice Pratt (Woodard) may be from different sides of the tracks, yet over the years they've managed to nurture a strong and healthy friendship. That friendship is put to the ultimate test, however, when their adult children begin to act out in ways that neither
Sep 12, 2008 Wide
Jan 13, 2008
$37.0M
Lionsgate
All Critics (41) | Top Critics (11) | Fresh (22) | Rotten (21) | DVD (2)
The Family that Preys shows grand advances in the filmmaking education of playwright-turned-filmmaker Tyler Perry. It's also his soapiest film yet, an overwrought melodrama of sibling rivalry, infidelity, family business power plays and terminal illness.
By far the best thing about the enterprise is Woodard. If she's not in this thing, I think it goes kaput.
The film takes off when Woodard's and Bates' characters go on a Thelma & Louise-style road trip.
The movie plays almost exactly like four daily soap episodes stitched together.
As usual, the villains are very bad, and the good guys are very noble -- until they get mad and clock their wives.
It's hard to resist the movie's mixture of soap opera, humor and heart-filled homilies.
Whatever its other sins, the movie cannot be accused of wanting for ambition or scope.
Exactly the kind of preachy, pandering, tone-shifting, gospel-laced soap opera that [Perry has] served up time and time again to his dedicated audience.
Tyler Perry's trademark sitcomish sermonizing has lightened up a bit here to explore hot topic race and class issues, but his 'family values is the best revenge' anthem, is awash as usual in sudsy mayhem.
A pat cautionary tale which manages to push the right emotional buttons every time. That's the magic of the Tyler Perry genre.
I appreciate what Perry is trying to do with his films, and it's nice to see an urban film that isn't a "Gangsta Picture", but he needs to tone down the soap opera qualities and let his stories unfold naturally.
(Tyler) Perry, a cinematic one-man band who wrote the script, produces, directs and plays the role of a decent husband and construction worker, is still growing as a filmmaker.
To call The Family That Preys a transitional effort would be accurate and fair
It has Tyler Perry's trademark trio: sincerity, spirituality, and story. And if he passes on that other "s" -- subtlety -- that's all right.
This snail-paced film might as well take place in the 1950s, since it seems to have been inspired by one those Hollywood melodramas in which one company employs the entire town, and the only places free of corruption are the church and the local diner.
A simple tale of good versus evil that also delivers solid acting and an enjoyable script
The closest Perry has come to making something that looks like it belongs on a movie screen and not on a TV set or on the wall of a church basement.
Well, GOod for Ty,ler Perry. He has invented his own genre of movie.
Perry may not be dealing with race issues, but he still writes everything in black-and-white.
When he's not distracted trying to accessorize dresses, Tyler Perry can write a decent enough soap opera.
If all Tyler Perry did with The Family That Preys was give Alfre Woodard a good part, that would be enough to make the movie worth seeing. But he does more.
While it's wonderful to see actresses as shamefully underemployed as Woodard and Bates on the big screen, even they can't make sense of [these] incoherent characters.
Cast: Kathy Bates, Alfre Woodard, Sanaa Lathan, Taraji P. Henson, Cole Hauser, Rockmond Dunbar, Kadee Strickland, Tyler Perry, Robin Givens, Kaira Whitehead, Damien Leake Director: Tyler Perry Summary: Tyler Perry writes, directs and co-stars in this poignant dramedy centered on a pair of friends -- wealthy
September 28, 2008
Super Reviewer
Put Kathy Bates and Alfre Woodard in a movie together and how can you go wrong?? Can't in my opinion. This is a really good drama. Tyler Perry really seems to have a gift in creating entertaining and memorable movies. This is one of them.
October 14, 2010Super Reviewer
| 29% | The Vow |
| 94% | Mission: Impossible Ghost Protoc... |
| 87% | The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo |
| 28% | Underworld Awakening |
| 85% | Chronicle |
| 65% | The Woman in Black |
| 25% | This Means War |
| 94% | The Secret World of Arrietty |
| 36% | Red Tails |
| 88% | Certified Copy (Copie Conforme) |
Red Tails, This Means War
Pictures: Wes Anderson films
Video: Your friendly four minute preview
Trailer: The legend continues!