Hola all. Massawyrm here.

There’s just no way to write about this without discussing the obvious. Almost every last ounce of interest folks have in this film revolves around the tragic, early deaths of Soul and Funk Legend Isaac Hayes and A List standup comedian Bernie Mac. Each of their deaths came as a shock, and that they died so close together made it even more tragic. Then it came out that both were appearing in the same film due out not long after their deaths. So how fitting a final film is it for the two? Well, Soul Men sadly proves to be the very definition of a mixed bag. There’s a lot to like here, not to mention a lot to dislike. But in a strange way, the film is both worthy of a look as well as a fitting tribute to the two late, great talents who take their final bows at the end of this film.

The story, and the film as a whole, is pretty lousy. Yet another in this year’s long string of road movies, the film hinges on and is predicated by a number of flimsy excuses to keep Bernie Mac and Samuel L. Jackson together at all times. There is almost nothing organic about how everything comes together or the direction the film takes. There are characters here who feel like they were either shoehorned into the movie or all but written out of earlier drafts – some of them simply annoying to the point of obnoxiousness. And to say that the film is predictable might be taken as a slight to predictable movies in general. Like a played out pop song, you know every beat of this film long before it’s time to change up.

HOWEVER, and this is a gargantuan however, the film is absolutely saved by the undeniable chemistry of its leads Bernie Mac and Samuel L. Jackson. Were it not called Soul Men it very easily could have been called Grumpy Old Black Men. And the title would have been more than apt. When this film isn’t busy making jokes about Bernie Mac’s inability to fire a gun, or his Viagra popping ways, or trying to lay out a tired story about reconnecting with the daughter you never knew – when the camera sits still in one place and just watches Mac and Jackson slap each other silly – the movie is pure magic. These two are unbelievably funny together.

Neither is doing anything particularly new. Mac is playing his wily smart-aleck fool routine, complete with several eyes-a-poppin gags. And Jackson is playing his angry, educated, do-not-fuck-with-me, yelling at the top of his lungs character. But when these two guys are in the same room together, there is new life injected into both acts. It’s watching two old pros play off each other like Matthau and Lemmon. These guys clearly got each other on a cellular level and found a rhythm that leads to laugh after laugh after laugh. Just the looks they give one another at times are enough to knock you over. And in a better movie, this could have been the makings of one of the great comedy teams of its day.

The story is pretty straight forward. Once two members of a famous trio, the lead singer went on to become one of the music industry’s most beloved musicians leaving these two to be washed up has-beens. But when that singer dies suddenly, Jackson and Mac hit the road to perform at his all star funeral at the Apollo with dreams of scoring a comeback. Guess what – not everything goes to plan on the road. Do you think they might end up getting robbed by beautiful women? Or end up in jail? Or any of the other road movie tropes? Yeah. But every time the movie steers into all too familiar territory, Bernie and Sam bring their own style of funny to the table and repeatedly pull the film out of its cinematic nosedive. There are a lot of jokes in here that simply shouldn’t work – but these two make them work. You see the set up coming, you know what the punchline is going to be. And yet the two consistently bring each bit back and make you laugh. Even when you probably shouldn’t.

Isaac Hayes makes only a few brief appearances in the film, but each scene is almost reverential – referring to him as Black Moses and always making sure he’s the coolest guy in the room at any moment. And while it isn’t really anything substantial, it feels like a very fitting way to say goodbye to ole Truck Turner as it was simply cool as hell to see him sitting there one last time, surrounded by a bevy of beautiful ladies. Just as God intended.

But most fitting was the postscript the film makers have added, immediately going from the film’s final gag into a short documentary (shown beside the credits), put together from the film’s electronic press kit, with Mac talking about what it means to be a comedian and what he feels he owes the audience every time he goes out on stage. This material is cut together with a few moments of stand up that he performed for what appears to be a number of extras seated for the final sequences of the film. He tells a few raunchy jokes and someone has to practically pull him off of the stage so they can continue shooting. This is immediately followed with some stills of Mac with Isaac Hayes over Hayes’ version of Never Can Say Goodbye, at which point I started to tear up like a bitch. These moments do a wonderful job of putting everything you’ve just seen into perspective, echoing the film’s own story involving mourning and moving on.

And frankly, it reminds you that this film is Bernie Mac at his best. Even if the material didn’t live up to his talent, he put himself into it completely and made mass amounts of funny out of very little. If you are in any way a Bernie Mac fan, you should give this a look. Hell, if you're a Jackson fan, you should give this a look. Mac and Jackson bring it. They bring hard. And what makes me saddest is that I’ll never get to see them do this again. With the A game these guys bring, this could have been Planes, Train and Automobiles - instead everything else about the film proves to be far beneath the talent of these two giants.

Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.

Massawyrm

Got something for the Wyrm? Mail it here.