KadeeStrickland Tagged Articles at Cinematical

To state that The Family That Preys is Tyler Perry's most accomplished screen effort to date doesn't change the fact that it's still exactly the kind of preachy, pandering, tone-shifting, gospel-laced soap opera that he's served up time and time again to his dedicated audience. However, in the grand scheme of things, his skills as a writer-director have been honed just well enough to make one wish that Perry would trust someone else to polish his rough spots at the script stage, so that his cast might play at something a bit more substantial than petty drama and broad sermons, and so that his critical reputation as a filmmaker might grow (well, recover) from the shrill likes of his trademark Madea character.

The difference between a small-scale dogfight and a real championship dogfight in 1957 is the audience. At the former, the all-male crowd is stereotypically country-bumpkin with faces and clothes covered in dirt. At the latter, rich folks are present, including women wearing their pearls and Sunday best. The surprise isn't that each has their own demographic, though; it is that either has any enthusiasts at all. Perhaps it is the illegality that draws them in, or maybe it's that gamblers will bet on just about anything.

While I was thinking about how dog fighting would be a tough-sell for a film like Walker Payne, which stars Jason Patric as a novice of the sport, I overheard some people in the audience discussing the contrary. They claimed the picture would be more marketable if the filmmakers cut out the dramatic story and just kept the dog fighting. If there are in fact people who enjoy watching pit bulls kill each other in a ring, then that edit would certainly make sense, since the film's narrative has very little going for it.