Actually, a better title would be "Riding the Coattails." Ever since he proved that African American audiences (with some minor mainstream crossover) could fill movie theaters for his chaotic cautionary tales, movie studio suits have been looking for the next Tyler Perry. In the case of Jumping the Broom, they need a search a lot harder. While director Salim Akil tries mightily, he just can't seem to make his "marriage" of class and crude humor come together. Sometimes, this tale of a mismatched couple putting up with their economically contrary in-laws finds the right notes of social sensibility. At other instances, it's underplayed and unfunny.
Jason (Laz Alonso) is a successful investment banker from humble roots. His protective mother (Loretta Devine) is a Brooklyn postal worker and his smart-ass cousins (Michael Epps and DeRay Davis) kid him about his minority position in a "white man's" world. All of that is about to change -- or actually, get a whole lot more heated -- when he announces that he intends to marry the beautiful, and wealthy, Sabrina (Paula Patton). Her family lives on Martha's Vineyard, puts on airs, speaks French, and claims a different "slave" ancestry from that of the rest of their black brethren. Jason's mom takes an immediate dislike to Sabrina's snooty socialite mother (Angela Bassett) and it's not long before the groom's group is being slighted and the bride's brood is fuming over the "urban" influence of these soon-to-be-related outsiders.
About as joyless as a shotgun wedding and twice as precarious, Jumping the Broom is the kind of movie that makes one long for the backhand to the face farce of Mabel "Madea" Simmons. This is the sort of story where everyone, from complaining parents to clueless adult kids, deserves to have some manner of sense smacked into them. While he's often accused of stereotyping (or worse), Tyler Perry at least draws on real world experiences within the African American community to motivate his message. Here, producer T.D. Jakes (a pastor in a non-denominational megachurch in Texas and author of several "inspirational" writings) wants to circumvent such a rough-hewn approach to try and create something more smooth and commercial. Unfortunately, by eliminating the edge, he eliminates any potential humor or heart.
Instead, we get a Caucasian wedding planner who's "down" with the "lingo", a weird bow to pre-nuptial celibacy (it's Sabrina's declaration, even though she's been around the block in the past), and the kind of narrative contrivance -- a new job oversees, a meet-cute car accident introduction -- that usually sinks the standard RomCom. But Akil hopes his cast will overcome such stumbles, and sometimes, they do. Devine, who we last saw dying in Madea's Big Happy Family, is full of piss and vinegar here, wanting to drop Bassett's bitchy matriarch down a couple dozen pegs. She is helped by Epps and Davis, who do a good job of adding tiny bits of satiric spunk to a film that is otherwise bland and bloated.
There is also a smarmy, self-serving bigotry here that makes little sense. In Perry's films, "disenfranchised" does not automatically mean crude and uncultured. Here, Jason is celebrated for his etiquette while the rest of his middle-class kin are categorized as dim, borderline affronts. True, Sabrina's side are also bourgeois, but at least they have money and place. Hard work and tradition are trumped by a McMansion and an artificially swollen bank account. Peppered within the mom-on-mom mayhem and narrative implausibilities are moments when Jumping the Broom shows some promise. For the most part, however, this is one muddled bit of matrimony.
Jason (Laz Alonso) is a successful investment banker from humble roots. His protective mother (Loretta Devine) is a Brooklyn postal worker and his smart-ass cousins (Michael Epps and DeRay Davis) kid him about his minority position in a "white man's" world. All of that is about to change -- or actually, get a whole lot more heated -- when he announces that he intends to marry the beautiful, and wealthy, Sabrina (Paula Patton). Her family lives on Martha's Vineyard, puts on airs, speaks French, and claims a different "slave" ancestry from that of the rest of their black brethren. Jason's mom takes an immediate dislike to Sabrina's snooty socialite mother (Angela Bassett) and it's not long before the groom's group is being slighted and the bride's brood is fuming over the "urban" influence of these soon-to-be-related outsiders.
About as joyless as a shotgun wedding and twice as precarious, Jumping the Broom is the kind of movie that makes one long for the backhand to the face farce of Mabel "Madea" Simmons. This is the sort of story where everyone, from complaining parents to clueless adult kids, deserves to have some manner of sense smacked into them. While he's often accused of stereotyping (or worse), Tyler Perry at least draws on real world experiences within the African American community to motivate his message. Here, producer T.D. Jakes (a pastor in a non-denominational megachurch in Texas and author of several "inspirational" writings) wants to circumvent such a rough-hewn approach to try and create something more smooth and commercial. Unfortunately, by eliminating the edge, he eliminates any potential humor or heart.
Instead, we get a Caucasian wedding planner who's "down" with the "lingo", a weird bow to pre-nuptial celibacy (it's Sabrina's declaration, even though she's been around the block in the past), and the kind of narrative contrivance -- a new job oversees, a meet-cute car accident introduction -- that usually sinks the standard RomCom. But Akil hopes his cast will overcome such stumbles, and sometimes, they do. Devine, who we last saw dying in Madea's Big Happy Family, is full of piss and vinegar here, wanting to drop Bassett's bitchy matriarch down a couple dozen pegs. She is helped by Epps and Davis, who do a good job of adding tiny bits of satiric spunk to a film that is otherwise bland and bloated.
There is also a smarmy, self-serving bigotry here that makes little sense. In Perry's films, "disenfranchised" does not automatically mean crude and uncultured. Here, Jason is celebrated for his etiquette while the rest of his middle-class kin are categorized as dim, borderline affronts. True, Sabrina's side are also bourgeois, but at least they have money and place. Hard work and tradition are trumped by a McMansion and an artificially swollen bank account. Peppered within the mom-on-mom mayhem and narrative implausibilities are moments when Jumping the Broom shows some promise. For the most part, however, this is one muddled bit of matrimony.
