Jumping the Broom

Or alternatively: "My Big Fat Black Wedding." 

This is a pretty slight movie, as you might guess, and wouldn't be worth your time except for one thing. There are so few good roles for African-American actors that this trifle is actually brimming with talent who make it surprisingly entertaining, in a schmaltzy, cliche, checking-off-the-boxes kind of way.

Rich Sabrina is going to marry poor Jason (Sabrina! Get it?) Their families don't get along. They break up the happy couple, but Love Conquers All. Oh, did I ruin the ending for you?

Sabrina (played by Paula Patton, who was so much better in Mission: Impossible 4) comes from a wealthy creole family, who live on Martha's Vineyard, which, as we all know, is the wellspring of Cajun culture. And the Vineyard has never been more beautiful. The whole movie looks like an L. L. Bean catalog.

Jason's family is from--GASP--Brooklyn, which is used here as a synonym for "the hood," which makes me wonder if the screenwriter has ever actually been to Brooklyn. The director clearly hasn't, as the only time we see Jason's mother in New York, she is on--don't snarf--the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

But Jason's mom is played by Loretta Devine, an amazingly skilled actress who manages to eat the role of the villainous, emasculating, easily offended mother of the groom rather delicately and with great humor, at least until she finally gets her comeuppance and magically turns into the good mother-in-law fairy.

She arrives with a retinue of cardboard characters that talented actors somehow manage to breathe life into: Tasha Smith as the sassy best friend, Mike Epps as the groom's ghetto-wise uncle.

On the bride's side, we find badass Angela Bassett in the unfortunate role of the cold rich bitch mother of the bride. I'm sorry, make that the cold, rich, French-speaking bitch. Could it be any worse? Ms. Bassett deserves an Oscar for actually managing not to make this character hateful. Julie Bowen from Modern Family even manages to generate a few laughs in her role as White Person Who Says All the Wrong Things Around Black People.

So where does this leave us? Well, I'm happy to report that nobody gets shot in this movie, you won't learn any cool ghetto slang, and it has absolutely no aspirations of being a Racial Message Movie. And it's not too painful to watch. Unfortunately what it isn't...just isn't enough to recommend this movie.