PREMIERE.COM'S REVIEW (posted 2/16/07)

Daddy's Little Girls writer/director Tyler Perry might've been better off making movies in the silent era. There, he wouldn't have had to worry about pesky things like dialogue. However, for now, we are stuck with Perry in the modern era. His latest film, Daddy's Little Girls, conspicuously lacks Perry's drag clad alter ego Madea — the star of his earlier hits Diary of a Mad Black Woman and Madea's Family Reunion — but it manages to be a drag nonetheless.

Girls stars Idris Elba as the saintly Monty, a mechanic whose only goal in life is to take care of his three adorable, precocious daughters and keep them away from their hustling mother Jennifer and her new drug-pushing beau. Monty is thrown into a custody battle when the girls' grandmother, who has been taking care of them while Monty is at work each day, is diagnosed with cancer and dies. Monty can't afford a lawyer, but he lucks out when he's assigned to become the driver of one of the best lawyers in town, Gabrielle Union's Julia. Not surprisingly, in addition to Julia taking the case, the two start to fall for one another. This is a Valentine's week movie, after all.

Needless to say, Perry has a knack for moving the story along and the appealing Union and Elba don't hurt that cause. Unfortunately, his films seem more like pastiches than a complete whole. Scenes are edited together for pace rather than continuity and when his characters aren't doing something in service of the story, Perry will force the issue. For instance, when Julia's friends berate her for dating a lowly mechanic, it's after they set her up on a blind date with an unemployed 40-year-old wannabe rapper. When Julia starts throwing up after a date, Monty begins to take off his shoes, ready for sex anyway. And this comes after the he's spent most of the movie being such an angel he may as well have wings sprouting from his back. The film also leads to a violent crescendo that seems to come out of nowhere and leaves a bitter aftertaste. Though the little girls referenced in the title mature quickly thanks to all the melodrama that surrounds them, the film's director has some growing up to do.

— Stephen Saito