Considering just how little soul Malcolm D. Lee’s “Soul Men” has for a movie starring two of the industry’s most charismatic actors, it probably should have been called something else instead. Perhaps a more appropriate title would be “Motherfuckers,” because co-stars Bernie Mac and Samuel L. Jackson utter the word at least a hundred times throughout the course of the film. Now, I’m all for Jackson channeling his inner badass, but it doesn’t have the same comedic punch when everyone around him joins in on the fun. Mac and Jackson probably had the time of their lives playing two has-been back-up singers who agree to participate in a reunion performance honoring the death of their former frontman, but the audience wouldn’t know it from watching the film, which is littered with old fart jokes circa 2002. An all-too-familiar buddy comedy that hinges entirely on the chemistry of its two stars, “Soul Men” is mediocre at best, and I shudder to think at how bad it would have been had neither actor been involved. God rest Bernie Mac’s soul, because while he wasn’t exactly what you’d call a great actor, he certainly deserved a better sending off than this.
