Soul Men

While tracking the movie listings, one notices quickly that some of them linger a long time, while others disappear very quickly. The latter was the case with Soul Men, which premiered in early November to wide release, stayed around robustly, then all of sudden nearly vanished. One week it was playing everywhere around Boston and the suburbs. The next day it was down to two theaters---the Loews Boston Common (no way I was going there again except by train), and the Entertainment Cinemas at the Fresh Pond Mall in Cambridge.

The latter was a new place for me, so it was obvious which one I'd choose. Google Maps told me it was an easy jaunt on Route 2 into Cambridge. The word "mall" made me think there would be plenty of parking.

It was chilly evening a little over a week again when I navigated the Beemer into the outskirts of Cambridge and found the lights of the sprawling shopping center. These are the kinds of malls I love---an obvious early incarnation of the concept of mall, it was more a "strip mall" but with a few twists, the biggest one being the presence of a central hallway that led to a elevator that went up to upper floors of offices. It was really a hybrid between shopping center and office building, surrounded by a big parking lot. The south end was now anchored by a Whole Foods. The aforementioned central hallway was flanked by a bonafide tobacconist, giving it all very urban feeling, like the shops in the New York subway entrances.

But I couldn't find the theaters. Finally I discovered that they were unattached to the main shopping center, in their own building in the back, a well kept secret.

The building was tall---two stories with long drapery-filled windows in the alley. It looked as odd as the mall itself---the product of a temporary phase of design in cinemas.

Whereas its corporate cousin in Leominster was staffed by teenagers, the one in Cambridge not suprisingly seemed to be filled with slacker college dropout types. The woman at the box office register rang me up for 9.50 ticket, but the stub itself said "senior citizen 6.50." I wondered if she'd pocketed the difference. Fine by me. More power to her.

A snaking slanted corridor led back to the auditoriums---another kooky feature. The auditorium for Soul Men was in the far corner. I was early, and not surprisingly was the first person there. My nostrils were greeted by the very pungent aroma of recently smoked marijuana. I wondered if it had come out through the window of the projection booth. I didn't mind, but I thought it amusing that anyone else entering the theater would figure it was me who had lit up.

No one else showed up. Just me in the long rows of traditional seating. The projectionist didn't bother to start the previews until fifteen minutes after the scheduled start time. I guess he or she had better things to do. But I was in no hurry.

No hurry. Yes, it was that kind of movie. I had low expectations for it, since it had gotten mediocre reviews, and those kind of silly comedies are sometimes unwatchable. But I found myself enjoying it, and even laughing a few times.

The story is more or less a riff on The Blues Brothers (1978), but with black characters, which of course brings the concept back full circle to its racial roots. The ending was in fact a full-on unashamed tribute to the Belushi-Acroyd flick.

But there was plenty of updated originality about it to make the trip to Cambridge worthwhile. Or maybe it was the ganga in the room. Who knows.

Samuel L. Jackson did an unassailable job yet again. The Zen-like attitude of his ex-convict character was a continuation of the one cultivated in Pulp Fiction and by his tour of duty as a Jedi Master. Bernie Mac acted his heart out. Well, that's a bad thing to say, isn't it? The ending credits featured a tribute to late comedian, as well as to Isaac Hayes, who had a cameo in the movie as well.

The crudeness level was far lower than I expected (much less than Role Models, for example). The invention of a fake Motown act was cultivated much more smoothly and realistically than it was in Dreamgirls, a movie I detested for its postmodern sloppiness. The performances of Motown standards were interesting and entertaining. The addition of a new song "Walk in the Park" (written by Cee-lo Green) in the climax gave it extra punch. Do I smell Oscar nomination? Probably not, but it's a low-hurdle category, and with no Enchanted in the mix this year, it is wide open.