Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns isn’t exactly a good movie, but it is a good Tyler Perry movie. As archly written, clumsily directed and Madea-infected as most of his other efforts (yes, Perry appears in drag as the pot-smoking grandma for two brief scenes that are completely unconnected to the plot), Meet the Browns also has a real actress as its anchor: Angela Bassett. Bassett plays Brenda, a single mother of three struggling to get by in Chicago. When a letter arrives telling her that the father she never met has died, she and her kids head to Georgia to meet her step-siblings. Writer-producer-director Perry has concocted a familiar narrative arc, but Bassett delivers enough authenticity to pull you into the story.
