Jada DVD

DVD Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Grieving-Mom Gets 2nd Chance at Love in Faith-Based Morality Play

Jada Davis (Siena Goines) is at her wit’s end after her husband dies in a car crash. Because he was driving drunk, his life insurance company refuses to honor the policy. So, it’s not long before she falls behind in mortgage payments and loses her house. This means, she ends up living in her car and on the streets, which is no place for a single-mom with a couple of bourgie teenagers used to middle-class creature comforts.

But that’s just the plight facing this grieving widow, along with her son, Jamal (Jason Weaver), and her daughter, Jasmine (Jennifer Freeman). This is the softball setup of Jada, directed by Robert Johnson, one of those predictable, faith-based morality plays popularized by Tyler Perry where a knight in shining armor comes along to save the damsel in distress.

In this case, there are actually two guys who come to the rescue. First, the local pastor, Reverend Terrence Mayweather (Clifton Powell), finds the fractured family a place in the projects. He then introduces Jada to Simon Williams (Rockmund Dunbar), a recently-paroled ex-con with 2 strikes against him. He’s determined to keep his nose clean because one more felony conviction and he’ll be put away for life.

The former gang member is even willing to serve as a mentor to Jamal, to keep the boy on the straight and narrow path so his mom, a good Christian woman, can take a job as a paralegal to get off welfare. Nonetheless, sparks soon start to fly between hunky Simon and well-preserved Jada, and they decide to be discrete and to get a motel room.

When their lust blossoms into love and public displays of affection, a major fly in the ointment is Jama who feels that he was used by the dude to get to his mother. Not to worry. “Miracles do happen!” as his sister, the film’s narrator, waxes romantic, during the pat happily-ever-after finale.

What do you expect when a film’s theme song features lyrics like, “Christ is there and knows how much you can bear.”

Good (2 stars)
Unrated
Running time: 89 minutes
Studio: Vivendi Entertainment