Rated PG-13, 111 minutes
"Good Deeds" is the latest Tyler Perry effort about a rich man who is jolted out of his predictable routing and into the real world. Written and directed by and starring Perry as the title character, "Good Deeds" finds itself in the same territory as most of Perry's other films about people struggling to do the right thing. Here Perry is Wesley Deeds, a CEO of a company who begins an unlikely friendship with one of his employees, Lindsey (the lovely Thandie Newton), a down-on-her-luck single mother with an array of problems. Wesley has his own problems, such as a stale relationship with his fiancee (Gabrielle Union) or a fractured one with his family (Phylicia Rashad, Brian J. White). When you're as successful a filmmaker as Perry who knows his audience, you can do almost anything you want, which Perry generally does (including not screening the film for critics, a smart move on his part), and the mediocre "Good Deeds," while better acted and directed than some of his previous films, still struggles with cookie-cutter characters and second-rate, predictable storytelling. There are a handful of affecting scenes and the beautiful Newton is the best thing about it, probably too good for "Good Deeds." It's also hard to believe that Newton and Jamie Kennedy, along with Eddie Cibiran and Rebecca Romjin, are all in the same film, if that tells you anything about its quality. "Good Deeds," while a notch better than what Perry has done in the past, is much like what he has done in the past - and give him credit here where much of Hollywood fails at this - is filled with decent, honorable messages about doing the right thing, but unfortunately not much of it is memorable. "Good Deeds" isn't terrible, but not that great either.
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