Charles reviews I Can Do Bad All By Myself

Tyler Perry’s back with his film version of his stage play, and once again he goes with his recurring theme of “lost woman found”. Academy Award-nominee Taraji P. Henson plays the lost sista this go-around, as a nightclub singer that battles her own demons of booze, her troubled niece and nephews suddenly thrust upon her, and an affinity for a vile, married man played by Bryan White.

Perry certainly knows how to connect and touch a nerve with his female audience, and I Can Do Bad All By Myself is no different. The flick pretty much follows the Tyler Perry model as his previous “lost woman found” films Diary of a Mad Black Woman and Madea’s Family Reunion (Madea reprises her outrageousness in this film) so there’s nothing really new here as far as ground covered and themes, but the performance by Henson is fairly solid, along with an outstanding dramatic turn by Hope Olaide Wilson, who plays her 16-year-old niece.

So, we have the “lost woman found,” we now need, of course, the “knight in shining armor” and he’s played by Adam Rodriguez (CSI Miami), who plays a handy man that rents a room from Henson and tries to get her to love herself and change her down-spiraling life. Music legend Gladys Knight, along with Mary J. Blige and Marvin Winans also star and lend their pipes to the production. ‘I Can Do Bad’ is must-see for Tyler Perry fans, and a might-see for everyone else.