As a film critic, it is easy to loathe Tyler Perry. Not because of his films, but more because he doesn't think enough of us to allow his studio Lionsgate to press screen them. Granted, after the reception Diary of a Mad Black Woman received from the majority of us I can't completely blame him, his adaptation of one of the writer/director's popular plays about as horrifically derivative as any 2005 picture I had the disservice to see.

Since then, none of his subsequent motion pictures (Madea's Family Reunion, Why Did I Get Married?, Daddy's Little Girls and Meet the Browns) have screened. Personally, I just don't get it. Sure I hated his first release but overall I'm pretty open-minded, and considering the superb casts Perry is able to line up film in and film out I'm more than willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Based on his latest effort, The Family that Preys to allow some pre-release buzz would certainly prove worthwhile. While not ultimately a successful motion picture, there is enough going on in this melodrama of interest that it is hardly a waste of time. Sure the story itself is formulaic and familiar, it's still acted with enough emotional conviction and paced with furious urgency that I don't think anyone would walk away kicking themselves in disappointed anger.

The story revolves around working class single mother Alice (Alfre Woodward) and her wealthy industrialist best friend Charlotte (Kathy Bates), their two families intimately tied together even if their income levels fall on opposite sides of the spectrum. During a cross-country road trip, their respective children; Andrea (Sanaa Lathan) and Pam (Taraji P. Henson) on Alice's side, William (Cole Hauser) on Charlotte's; proceed to make a mess of things, all of their respective careers and livelihoods suddenly hanging by a thread thanks to the choices they make.

This is the first Perry production to showcase an ethnically diverse cast andis the basic Douglas Sirk-like melodrama (think Written on the Wind for BET crowd) of infidelity, sibling rivalry, class warfare and parental conflicts we've seen for decades. Heck, fans of daytime soap operas are going to see every twist and turn long before the characters do; emotional schmaltz is layered on like pizza sauce.

But the acting is quite good; Bates, Woodward, Henson and Rockmon Dunbar play their respective roles with sincerity, inhabiting them far more fully than I had remotely anticipated. Best of all, surprisingly, is Mike Tyson's ex-wife Robin Givens in a small but pivotal role as the new CEO of Charlotte and William's family owned construction comedy. She's the driven-yet-principled contrast to Lathan's intelligent-yet-backstabbing Andrea, each woman striving to get to the top but only one doing it in a way in which she'll be able to look herself in the mirror afterward.

Lionsgate's DVD of The Family that Preys comes sans commentary from Perry but it does include a series of deleted scenes, most of which are downright terrible, that show the writer/director is starting to learn from past mistakes and not keep everything he shoots no matter what the quality. There are also four featurettes on the making of the film, but none of them offer anything significant and tend to repeat much of the same information over and over again.

I can't quite recommend this to Perry newcomers; it's covered in schmaltz and far too obvious, but it does show the filmmaker to be progressing. His handling of actors and his staging of scenes starting to show a confidence none of the others I've watched (Why Did I Get Married?, Daddy's Little Girls and Meet the Browns) have possessed. For the target audience this will probably hit the spot, and I'd have been more than happy to have said so months ago had Perry and the studio got off their high horse and actually screened it. Here's hoping they do so in the future.