Jumping_The_Broom_Movie_Review_Overallsite

Review by Denver Post

When Charles Dickens wrote “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” he wasn’t thinking about weddings.

Maybe he should have been. Best. Worst. Indeed.

In the wake of last week’s royal hookup comes “Jumping the Broom” and “Something Borrowed,” two wedding comedies hoping their audiences will glean fresh wisdom from all the on- screen foolishness. (Next Friday: “Bridesmaids.”)

The better invite comes by way of “Jumping the Broom,” starring Paula Patton and Laz Alonso as Sabrina and Jason, a happy, then increasingly less-so, couple.

A successful lawyer, Sabrina makes a prayerful promise to foreswear booty calls and wait until her wedding night if God sends her a good man. Her “Hello soul mate!” moment arrives when she runs into Jason, a Wall Street analyst.

When Sabrina is offered a promotion that would have her relocate, Jason proposes.

Their nuptials bring the Brooklyn Taylors face-to-face with the Watsons of Martha’s Vineyard — for the first time.

Review by Chron

Long ago, in the era before Tyler Perry (B.T.P.), most religious folks in movies were wingnuts and phonies. There were and are exceptions to the rule (Chariots of Fire; anything to do with C.S. Lewis), but by and large, characters who quoted scripture tended to be fire-spitting hypocritical Bible thumpers.

What Perry did was claim religion as the purview of normal people. Say what you will about his films, but they take everyday spiritual-ethical struggles and drop them — with soapy plot accouterments and cross-dressing fat-suit humor – smack into the laps of average American moviegoers. As it happens, he and most of those moviegoers are black; it’s still hard to find a predominantly white film that treats religious devotion as anything but suspect behavior.

Which leads me to the heartfelt Jumping the Broom. Perry had nothing to do with it – the film was directed by Salim Akil from a script by Elizabeth Hunter and Arlene Gibbs, and it’s much, much less broad than the T.P. oeuvre – yet it owes him a debt of gratitude for its wide release. In style and structure, it mimics an old-style studio effort, a culture-clashing comedy of manners that’s tinged with melodrama and filmed in a smart progression of medium shots. But when characters open their mouths, God-talk pops out – as naturally and frequently as dirty words in an Judd Apatow movie.

Review by Jam Showbiz

Yep, must be spring. Wedding movies are busting out all over.

This weekend, we have two, the sour-tasting Something Borrowed, and the African-American-centric Jumping the Broom. The latter has its heart in the right place, and earnestly tackles “inside” race politics between broad laughs and shtick.
By the unfortunate Blacks-in-Hollywood playbook, the very premise of this movie about a blue-collar-raised African American (Laz Alonso) marrying the daughter (Paula Patton) of a rich black family practically screams for buffoonery. But there’s nobody in a fat woman suit here, and the only overtly Tyler Perry-ish touch is the sore-thumb “who’s my real daddy/mom” last act — which practically echoes the mawkish denouement of Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family.

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