Soul Men (2008)

I've read somewhere that Sam Jackson won't turn down a movie role and will take anything that comes his way. I wonder if that's true.


A movie like Soul Men makes me ask that question, though I can understand why Jackson might have accepted the role. On paper, Soul Men looks bona fide: despite a long-standing feud over women and Lord knows what else, retired soul singers Floyd Henderson (the late Bernie Mac) and Louis Hinds (Jackson) reunite on a cross-country tour on their way to the Apollo to pay tribute to their late colleague Marcus Hooks. As a comedy film about two feuding musicians - particularly ones who speak as rapid-fire and as profanely as Bernie Mac & Sam Jackson, it seems like it's a good idea.


Well, it was. The execution left something to be desired, however. While both lead actors are decent and believable as their characters, the movie trips over its own emotional center, dulling the chemistry between Henderson and Hinds. When in full comedy mode, Bernie Mac & Sam Jackson are solid gold, and they're not bad singers either. But when the film moves into territory about a long-lost daughter (Sharon Leal), the film fumbles the ball.


The laughs are strong, but they're few and ultimately far between. Of course, no one can drop a string of F- and M-F-bombs like Sam Jackson, and even Bernie Mac holds his own in this domain, but the movie doesn't have nearly enough of these fun moments to keep an audience fidgetless for 90-some minutes. I didn't have as much fun with this as I did Run Fatboy Run, but it's hard not to at least crack a smile when Sam Jackson's on the screen. They seem like they're having fun, so at times that bleeds through, particularly in a few scenes between Henderson and Hinds that had to be improvised.


Rent Soul Men if you're a fan of either of the protagonists, but there are better films in each of their respective canons.

Soul Men earned an "R for pervasive language, and sexual content including nudity" from the MPAA. From these two guys, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the language is coarse as sandpaper. Nudity is brief, restricted to one scene, though discussion and clothed depictions of sexual situations are abundant.