"Jumping the Broom" is like a Tyler Perry movie with polish. An ensemble comedy about a wedding that joins a wealthy, Martha's Vineyard family of African-American professionals with the groom's more down-to-Earth working-class Brooklynites, it is well cast, well played and passably written.

And if this T.D. Jakes project (he produced it) lacks the scruffy, hit-or-miss outrageousness of Perry's down-home Atlanta farces, it compensates with heart, smarts and a confident air that Perry's pictures lack. "Broom" never looks like it's trying too hard.

Paula Patton of "Precious" plays Sabrina, an excitable young woman of privilege who prays for a "good man" and promptly hits one -- Jason (Laz Alonzo). Literally. With her car. They date, and when it looks as if she's about to move to China for a job, he proposes. A wedding at the house on the Vineyard is arranged.

But Jason hasn't brought Sabrina to meet his mom. And Pam (Loretta Devine) is fuming over that. She vents to her pal Shonda (Tasha Smith) and keeps score of all the slights she collects from the bride and the highfalutin mother of the bride (Angela Bassett), who switches to French when she wants to say something nasty.

Mike Epps and DeRay Davis play the groom's fish-out-of-water cousins, wise-crackers overwhelmed by all the wealth. Meagan Good is the bride's snobby best friend and Valarie Pettiford is Sabrina's sexy, free spirit aunt.

There's an earnest wedding planner (Julie Bowen) who is the surrogate for the non-black viewer. The character is something of a cliché in black sitcoms, but Bowen makes her work.

Virtually everybody in this film directed by TV veteran Salim Akil has been a member of Tyler Perry's ensemble company. But here, they don't force the laughs.

The funny moments outnumber the warm ones. But as traditional as it is, "Jumping the Broom" throws a few nice twists into its situation, and the players deliver.