Jumping the Broom (2011)

Best movie of this year hands down!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This was as boring as watching paint dry. It's way too talky, and lacks laughs. I rented this movie because I love Paula Patton. I think she's gorgeous and extremely talented. This was a huge disappointment, and I didn't even like Patton's character all that much, and I think the world of her. This tries to emulate Tyler Perry's style to no avail. Perry himself isn't perfect, but he knows what makes his audience tick when it comes to emotion and laughs. The director Salim Akil doesn't have the skill that Perry does to pull that off. It starts off well enough. It gave me a couple of chuckles, and set the tone for the rest of this movie. Unfortunately, it's all downhill from there. Final Thoughts: I zoned out on a couple of occasions during this movie, which shouldn't happen when Paula Patton is involved. I hope her recent movie, Baggage Claim is better than this one3/10

Two worlds collide when compulsive, suave and resigned to solitude uptown girl Sabrina Watson (Paula Patton) runs over an up-and-coming businessman deriving from Bronx Jason Taylor (Laz Alonso). The chance connection redefines them both and within a blink of an eye they have set a wedding date aiming to finalise their marriage. The biggest obstacle being the conflicting family backgrounds, which seem set to topple the marriage. Mr Watson (Brian Stokes Mitchell) and Mrs Watson (Angela Bassett) were born into riches and high class lifestyle, to the extent that despite her skin colour Mrs Watson stems from a family of former slave owners. Meanwhile the widow Mrs Taylor (Loretta Devine), a police clerk, is a possessive mother with very traditional standpoints and a dismissive attitude towards any foreign elements to her family. When family secrets are revealed and incompatible world views interact one weekend on Martha's Vineyard the wedding seems set to burn...It comes somewhat of a surprise that a romantic comedy with subtexts set in African-American culture seems to be such a novelty, exposing how limited the access of this key demographic has to cinema. Coming off as a black "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", it features rich cultural connotations, centred around the key plot of 'jumping the broom', a traditional form of entering into marriage, derived from the slavery period, when blacks were forbidden to formally marry, hence resorting to African customs. This beautiful and meaningful tradition has seemingly been ridiculed as backward by upper class African Americans (which I must say is a somewhat gut-wrenching self-degrading of their rich culture). And as such this conflict should and could have been the centre of focus for the plot, which unfortunately derails from the substantial comedy into more melodramatic subplots. With only a mildly funny comedic backdrop and the social issues mostly on a back-burner, hinted and then disregarded, the main causes for watching "Jumping the Broom" is the somewhat novel context and the absolutely wicked performances by both matrons: Devine and Bassett. Most other actors deal with the story with typical African-American over-exuberance, but the two queens are dastardly perfection as they summarily head towards total conflict.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS I voted higher than I really wanted to because there is no way this movie is what it's currently rated at which is 4.6. It wasn't a '10' but it was a well written and acted romantic comedy/drama. I actually would not call this a romantic comedy. I would characterize it more of a drama with comedy on the side.I thought the story was entertaining and believable and the actors all did a good job. It has all of the dysfunctional family drama that drives the plot of this type of movie with the prerequisite lessons learned and ******SPOILER ALERT****** happy ending. I am a lover of all things romance and LOVE my predictable Hollywood happy endings. No more french 'slice of life' independent flicks for me.I really enjoyed this move and even cried at the end....so watch it if you haven't. It won't be the best movie ever but I doubt you'll be upset that you took the time.

Jumping the broom starts out slow, picks up a bit after half an hour when the location switches over to Martha's Vineyard but starts to fall flat just when things could get interesting and leads to a swiftly packaged formulaic and disappointing ending.It's a shame that the movie was so poor especially when you've got the excellent Angela Basset to headline the movie. But, even this is a let down as she's sidelined to a supporting role, paving the way for Paula Patton to leave her mark. Which, she unfortunately leaves with a bitter taste in your mouth. Paula's acting was mediocre at best, for a role that any no name actress could have pulled off with more ease and style. But you can't fully blame Paula, for the true culprit is the storyline.I reckon that the director must have seen all of Tyler Perry's movies and play and thought about how to do one in his own style. There's plenty of decent ideas that could have made this a better movie: a hidden family secret that could become a raging destructing tornado, family bonds, bonds of faith and friendship. The family bond is introduced with Jason and his mother, though properly developed. We only get to see a glimpse of the troubles of this family towards the end. What's worse is that the family secret is introduced in the last 10 minutes of the movie and not given proper development, making me wonder what the point was for introducing something like that in a light romantic comedy. The relationship between the two main leads is not interesting and lacking in depth. Somehow it's ludicrous to think that a woman who is so promiscuous would suddenly decide to abstain from sex for six months in the hope of signifying her unyielding and true love for her new found "soulmate." As for the rom-com...the romance is barely there and the comedy is sparse. With Mike Epps in the movie I thought there were bound to be lots of funny scenes but he's subdued and his role is more serious which is a sore letdown. DeRay Davis as the cousin with the chip on his shoulder is poor and he comes off as a one dimensional selfish character.All in all, it's better to watch Tyler Perry's movies again. They're not solid gold but at least Perry knows who to pace a movie well with comedy and to handle tricky story lines with more grace.