When I first heard about Daddy's Little Girls, I felt  more than willing to give writer/director Tyler Perry a clean slate -- even though the last two films he was involved with were tactless preach-a-thons starring Perry himself donning drag to play an annoying matriarchal type named Madea. Unlike the sleeper successes Madea's Family Reunion and Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Madea is nowhere to be seen in Daddy's Little Girls, and neither is Tyler Perry, who decided to stick behind the scenes for his sophomore directing vehicle.

Has Perry finally found his footing and crafted an  inspirational film that doesn't look down on viewers? Sorry, but the Big Guy must've been on vacation, because Daddy's Little Girls comes across as a movie with a cartoonish sense of storytelling that's simplistic to the point of pure, blissful idiocy.

Monty (Idris Elba), a mechanic in his mid-30s, has only one goal in life: to be able to provide for his three little daughters. He tries his hardest to support and take care of them, although his ex-wife Jennifer (Tasha Smith) is dead-set on claiming the girls for herself (exactly why never gets revealed here). One day, an accident ends up with the court taking away Monty's daughters and placing them in Jennifer's complete custody, leaving Monty in an extremely tight spot. Luckily, help is on the way, although from an unlikely source: Julia (Gabrielle Union), a no-nonsense, cutthroat lawyer Monty once served as a chauffer for.

After witnessing his plight firsthand, Julia agrees to take on Monty's case, adding it onto her already busy plate. As the two continue with their meetings, Monty starts to fall for Julia, and Julia begins to shed her own thick skin and open herself up to the possibility that not all single dads are deadbeats. She realizes Monty has an undying love for his daughters, and this inspires her to fall in love with him as well.

Although Daddy's Little Girls was obviously made with the best of intentions, we all know that's what the road to a certain fiery underworld is paved with. Unfortunately, this movie quickly loses focus of its inspirational story and gets caught up in throwing  every melodramatic plot device imagined onto the screen. Perry's films always seem to begin with an admirable message and earnest intentions, only to sour up thanks to a brand of storytelling that's hammier than an Easter dinner. Daddy's Little Girls is no different. The story's mechanics depend on two things to keep the film moving: the characters must remain complete nimrods until it's convenient for the plot, and they have to be as one-note, stereotypical, and devoid of complexities as possible.

Union and Elba actually give quite good performances here, sharing some nice chemistry and pitching in an effort to present more fully-realized characters than Perry's screenplay is willing to let them be. Sadly, the same can't be said for the remainder of the cast. Smith is such an over-the-top, unmotivated caricature of a villainess, she makes Snidely Whiplash look positively understated. Louis Gossett Jr. gets relegated to the obligatory "old guy who gives wise advice" stock role, Monty's daughters are treated more as MacGuffin plot devices than as actual characters, and Julia's best friends in the film are women who see no problem in setting Julia up on blind dates with wannabe rappers but who treat her relationship with the kind-hearted and hard-working Monty like she decided to bed Hitler.

People who love a movie I dislike often tell me it's because I don't have personal experience with the subject matter. Maybe that's true, but a good film manages to involve me anyway -- and Daddy's Little Girls failed to do so. 

MY RATING: * (out of ****)

(Released by Lionsgate and rated "PG-13" for thematic material, drug and sexual content, some violence and language.)