Jumping the Broom as published online at Variety.com

A wedding movie that may have viewers rooting for divorce lawyers, “Jumping the Broom” is a broad African-American family comedy that manages to avoid many of the more predictable clichés of the genre, yet also leaves out the warmth and, too often, the laughs. Drawing its title from an antebellum tradition in which slave couples jumped over a broom to signify their commitment to one another, pic boasts a name cast sure to lure underserved black auds, though word of mouth — as well as potential crossover appeal — may be soured by the film’s nasty tone and all-too-tidy resolutions.