By Geno McGahee
I recently watched WHITE CHICKS and remarkably enjoyed it. I was certain that the film would not age well and that I would not laugh at all. I actually found the movie hilarious and that led to me to watch another film that I felt I needed to watch. The 1986 controversial comedy “SOUL MAN” was in order and I’ll start by saying that it has nothing on WHITE CHICKS.
Mark Watson (C. Thomas Howell) is a privileged young man on the fast track to success. He and his friend, Gordon (Arye Gross), have both gotten accepted into Harvard Law School, but things get complicated when Mark’s dad refuses to pay for it. Gordon immediately reminded me of Stiles from TEEN WOLF, which isn’t really a good thing. Well, maybe a good thing. He could have reminded me of Chubbs.
Desperate to get into Harvard, Mark starts looking at his options. He finds a scholarship that will fully pay but it’s for a black student, which leads him to a drastic change. He meets up with his friend, Seth (John David Bland), who just so happens to be working on tanning products and hooks him up with a pill that turns his skin black. The special effects are about as bad as WHITE CHICKS, but I think that with WHITE CHICKS, it was intentional.
At Harvard, Mark immediately finds racism everywhere. The landlord of the apartment, McGrady (Jeff Altman), has issue with Gordon bringing a black guy into the building and the owner of the building, Mr. Dunbar (Leslie Nielsen), is not happy either. He gets even more irritated when his daughter, Whitney (Melora Hardin), takes an interest in Mark.
After encountering two college kids telling constant racist jokes, Mark meets Sarah (Rae Dawn Chong), and begins making his moves. He joins a law class because he thinks that because the professor, Banks (James Earl Jones), is black, he will get a pass. That doesn’t happen. Banks is a no-nonsense guy and with the booming voice of James Earl Jones, he quickly shuts Mark down.
I recognized one of the students in the Banks class. Where did I know Bruce (Jerry Pavlon) from? It finally hit me. Pavlon played the slow guy from FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V: A NEW BEGINNING and I have to be honest. His performance in FRIDAY THE 13TH was much better. I wonder if he won any awards for it. Probably not. They never appreciated Jason movies.
What started as a harmless stunt becomes something that hits Mark hard when he discovers that had he not taken the scholarship, Sarah would have gotten it. She also has a young child to support, making his guilt that much heavier. He now has to find a way to turn himself in. He puts his heads together with Gordon and come up with a plan to reveal his true race and somehow escape without going to prison and with the love of Sarah.
I have to say that I could live without the Gordon character in this film. He is not funny. He adds nothing at all to the film. He does this big dialogue at the end to the committee during the reveal that was about as annoying and unfunny as it gets. I think more people should have a problem with the Gordon character than this film and its theme.
SOUL MAN is not a good comedy, but it’s not a terrible film. There was one laugh where the rich white family had these fantasies about Mark, but other than that, I didn’t laugh at all. The concept of a privileged kid doing anything to get ahead at any cost but learning to be giving worked in this. The cast is solid and I overall enjoyed the film. James Earl Jones is worth the watch alone. He’s always great.
So, I’m going to recommend SOUL MAN. It was unrealistic and the makeup sucked, but the film is pretty good. Gordon sucked and a lot of the comedy attempts blew, but if you take it as just a drama, you’ll enjoy it more.
