Soul Men   Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Bernie Mac and Sharon Leal High Fliers Films RRP: £15.99 HFRR0114 Certificate: 15 Available 17 January 2011

When R&B legend Marcus Hooks dies suddenly, his original back up duo, Floyd Henderson (Bernie Mac) and Louis Hinds (Samuel L. Jackson), "The Real Deal," are invite to appear at a memorial tribute at the Apollo Theatre. Floyd, who's bored in retirement, wants this more than anything; Louis, a philosophical ex-con, does not. Plus, there's bad blood between them (Louis's wife Odetta left him to marry Floyd - then left Floyd). Floyd begs, Louis consents but won't fly, so they leave L.A. in Floyd's flashy Cadillac with five days to get to New York. On the road, they must get back their vocal chops, renew their friendship, and sort out the past. With Floyd's bad hip and Louis's bad kidneys, will they even make it...?

Soul Men is a buddy road trip comedy that sees Bernie Mac and Samuel L. Jackson as two has-been singers (Floyd Henderson and Louis Hinds) who were briefly famous in the '70s, before their group's lead singer left to embark on a very successful solo career. Now, years later, that singer is dead, opening the door to Floyd and Louis's possible musical comeback.

The two, who haven't spoken in years, finally settle their differences and head across America to perform in a huge tribute concert for their dead colleague. Both broke, they have to perform at venues along the way simply to pay for their motel rooms.

While this is an enjoyable comedy, and both main actors pull out all the stops, there's very little here that you won't have seen before in other movies. And it's this lack of originality that stops this movie been elevated to a must see comedy.

Sadly two of the movie's stars (Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes) died in unrelated incidents in August 2008, three months before the movie's release. And apparently the director heavily re-edited the finished movie to soften the tone of the film, as a tribute those two actors. It would have been interesting to see what the original cut of the film was like.

The review copy we received was a fairly basic affair (a single movie file burned onto a DVD-R disc). The aspect ratio was incorrect, but I'm assuming that will be sorted for the full retail release. Also there were no features on the disc we received.

7

Nick Smithson