Soul Men - Grumpy, Soul Men

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Soul  Men stars Samuel L. Jackson as Louis Hinds and the late Bernie Mac as Floyd Henderson.  The two are best known as “The Real Deal,” back-up singers for the legendary (and fictitious) Marcus Hooks.  They have faded into varying levels of obscurity since being jettisoned by Hooks in the late ‘70s for an immensely successful solo career.  When Hooks dies unexpectedly, The Real Deal is invited to reunite and perform at his funeral.  Henderson sees a shot at renewed glory and an escape from a mundane retirement; Hinds just wants to be left alone but is willing to go along for some much needed cash. 

Mac was a gifted comedian.  He always reminded me of W.C. Fields in that, no matter how gruff and/or mean he was, you never quite believed it.  This peculiarity allowed both comedians to do and say horrible (and horribly funny) things without the audience turning on them.   And there is, admittedly, a wonderful chemistry between Mac and Jackson.  Soul Men is part Grumpy Old Men, part The Blues Brothers and part The Sunshine Boys.  Unfortunately, it isn’t remotely as funny as any of those movies.

Quite frankly, this movie is beneath both of them.  If you consider Bernie Mac getting a prostate exam the height of hilarity, then perhaps you should stop reading here.  After a promising set-up, the script quickly becomes a rudimentary “road movie” as Hinds and Henderson travel cross country in order to perform at Hooks’ funeral.  Of course, people don’t go to comedies for great plots.  (After all, how many movies could share a synopsis with Superbad?)  The problem is that the script gives them nothing to do.  Soul Men is reminiscent of early Robin Williams’ vehicles, in that it was clearly expected that the film’s star would punch-up the script on the fly.  And while it’s a valiant effort, even Mac’s talents can’t pull this film out of the abyss. 

And for a movie that uses music as a major plot point, there isn’t much of it and what there is isn’t very good.  The film is obviously using Stax/Motown nostalgia as the blueprint for its main characters.  But all we get are poorly rendered covers of classics or well rendered (but poorly written) copies of classics.  On the rare occasion that we get to see The Real Deal perform, there is nothing that would give us any inkling as to why anyone would care about their reunion in the first place.

As the credits roll, we are treated to tribute to Bernie Mac.  It’s mostly made up of clips of him entertaining extras during the filming of the music scenes and interview clips of him discussing his comedic philosophy.  That alone is almost worth the price of admission.  Perhaps someone should make that film.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being The Blues Brothers and 1 being The Blues Brothers 2000, Soul Men gets a 5.

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