After
seeing "I Can Do Bad All By Myself", "Why Did I get Married", and the
sequel, I became a big fan of Tyler Perry--no, not his Madea,
who gets tiresome after 5 minutes. "For Colored Women" seems ready made
for Tyler Perry to bring to the screen. His success has come from
writing, producing and directing plays which he then brings to the
screen. This film is based on a hit Broadway play "For Colored Girls Who
Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow  Is Enuf" written by Ntozake Shange which consisted of poems spoken in monologue by 7 women.

Perry
has added an extra woman, plus the males that were spoken about but not
shown on the stage, and has opened the play to scenes all over
Manhattan but mainly Harlem. He gets fine performances from all his
actors but, and it is a big but, the transferring of poems to the screen
is too overwhelming for the director/writer Mr. Perry. One of his major
mistakes is trying to update what took place in the 70s and bringing it
into the 2000s when calling  a Black woman a colored girl. He does
touch on Black men on the 'down low' and spreading HIV and puts today's
references and technology on the screen.

There
is a lot to absorb while watching the film, and it goes on for over 2
hours, ranging from brutal abuse, rape, infanticide, women being
betrayed, abortion, mother-daughter clashes and a really horrible scene
that is so harrowing you won't easily forget it.

Among the men Omari Hardwick as Janet Jackson's husband gives a strong performance as do most of the men. Loretta Devine,
who seems to be Tyler Perry's 'good luck charm' does her usual good job
and a few of the actresses, if the world was fair, like Thandle Newton, Kimberly Elise and Tessa Thompson would be getting awards. Phylicia Rashad continues her excellent portrayal of various women with a quiet but forceful performance while Whoopie Goldberg returns to being an actress.

Tyler Perry doesn't quite come through to grab the gold ring
with this movie but, hopefully, will continue crossing over to more of
an audience than he is playing to now as far as race and gender goes.