IMDb user comments for
Soul Man (1986)

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18 comments in total

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9 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
a awesome but misunderstood film, 30 April 2004
Author: PeteStud from australia

In this day of PC rubbish this film probably would cop a lot of flak if it was re released. People actually picketed this film in its day and it has been given the needle from Spike Lee and Eddie Murphy. Well, I am black and didnt find it offensive at all, in fact if people want to attack it and say it is they might want to look at more deserving features that are released nowadays . I personally find most of the stereotypes in the aforementioned directors films quite insulting but that doesnt mean I will hate their work. This movie, although a little awkward in its delievery is obviously made with good intention and should be commended for telling a story with very truthful elements to it. If you cannot see that then you are missing the point. The best and most significant scene is when Mark watson sits down with his rich white girlfriends family for dinner. the scenes they evision are absolutely hilarious and painfully real ...especially priceless is Leslie Nielsens thoughts. a very very funny but misunderstood film (by the wowsers anyhow). relax and enjoy a great teen flick with a real message underlying, if nothing else enjoy the scenery chewing by James Earl Jones, Rae Dawn Chong , Leslie Nielsen and a early Julia Louis-Dreyfus. excellent fun.

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5 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
" I exceeded the recommended dosage.", 24 July 2001
Author: cousteau

Pills that can tan your entire body?! Huh. ;)

C.Thomas Howell is so good in his role. His charm is so intoxicating and you always wanna laugh at him. He looks like a cuter version of steve-o from jackass, with discolored skin and a black curly 'fro! He looks so obviously NOT black.

The best part of this film is the editing style. I recently discovered the importance of editing; it's good that this one was edited at a very quick and entertaining pace, otherwise it would've seemed outdated by today.

I actually think a film like this would make it today, since there's a heavy backlash from the '90's 'political correctness' theme. There are some heavy themes here, (although it's a comedy) but C.Thomas Howell keeps you wanting more. Supporting roles from James Earl Jones, the character Sarah, and her son are all great, but C.Thomas Howell keeps this film timeless; he is perfect.

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5 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Silly, but very funny, 22 November 1999
Author: Meredith-7 from Melbourne, Australia

I remember watching this in my early teens, and thinking it was one of the funniest films that I had seen. Watching it again over 10 years later, its still pretty funny. In the age of political correctness it probably has quite poor taste, but thats not its intention. Its a lightweight comedy, and thats the way it should be taken. There are a few moments where a message and moral does come through, especially in the later half of the film. This adds to the films charm, as well as giving people a fairly superficial albeit correct notion of the social struggle faced by some races. C Thomas Howell was very good in this film, and I feel that its a shame that he does not make that many feature films these days- he seems to appear a lot in direct to video films. It was also interesting to watch Julia Louis-Dreyfuss in her very pre-Seinfeld days, before she became Elaine. This really is a funny film, very unbelievable but heaps better than the lame comedies that the big studios are serving up these days.

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4 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
"obbbjection!", 3 August 2001

Author: marcusenglish (englishmg@yahoo.com) from norwich, united kingdom

"to what?"

"frankly, your tone of voice."

i watched soul man twice at the cinema when it came out; i loved it to bits.

i thought the movie was warm and funny and dealt with a difficult subject in an imaginative and sincere way.

i found c thomas very likeable and i thought his relationship with rae dawn chong and her young son was believable and natural. james earl jones was fantastic too.

my fave thing about the movie is ayre gross. i loved him in coupe de ville and on ellen and he's excellent here as mark's smart-alec best friend gordo. the scene where he has to defend mark in court is so funny.

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4 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Funny premise goes to the dogs (no racial pun intended)..., 1 September 2003
Author: MovieAddict2008 from UK

Ridiculously unfunny 80s switcheroo comedy about a teenager named Mark (C. Thomas Howell) who desperately needs a scholarship to get into Harvard - the only problem is, the one remaining scholarship is open only to blacks. You can guess Mark's brilliant plan, as well as the fate of the entire movie. Funny premise and great co-stars (James Earl Jones, Leslie Nielsen, Julia Louis-Dreyfus) cannot a good movie make. Jokes are wasted and the film is way too predictable.

** / *****

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2 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Cheap, not funny, and a waste of money, 11 January 2007

Author: Rorschach17 from United Kingdom

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Before watching this film, I was never expecting a spectacular movie experience. I'll admit to being a fan of those silly fast paced feel good ending 80s comedies, those early Eddie Murphy or Michael J. Fox films being the best example of these. This is the style I was expecting, and I think is what the director was aiming for, but falling very very far from the mark!

The premise could have worked: white kid from rich background decides to pass for a poor black boy to get a scholarship to a top American university. In doing so, he learns harsh lessons about racism and class divides, etc... Plenty of room for some fun jokes, taking the mike out of the real life stereotypes at those top American university establishments, and still come out of it without too much complications and a good morality tale. But what you end up with is a film in which you keep waiting for a really good punchline to arrive, no real surprise turn at any point whatsoever and a lot of pent up frustration by the end for having wasted an hour and half of your life.

By the standards of those previously mentioned 80s comedies, this films' budget couldn't have been that bad, and although the scripts is basic at best, I'm sure at least a bit more could have extracted from it. The main culprits for this waste of film stock have to be the director who does not seem to have put any thought to the direction or elaboration of his script to put it onto screen, and the lead actor C. Thomas Howell. In the same year, he played the stalked young lead in The Hitcher, which has now become somewhat of an 80s cult reference to horror thrillers; this is to say that Mr Howell was not necessarily a bad actor, but definitely a bad comedian. He has no comic timing, a necessity in this form of entertainment, no real talent at expressional comedy, and has no clue when to keep a serious face and when to lighten-up. Although again a large part of this has to go down to bad directorship. Rae Dawn Chong, in the main female lead, does well with what she has, without ever pushing the film to any kind of redemptive level. Coming the closest to doing this is James Earl Jones, who is so hopelessly under-used you have to wonder if he didn't just walk out on the production when he saw how terrible it was. The same could be said of Julia Louis-Dreyfus(Elaine from Seinfeld) and Leslie Nielsen, who have so little screen time it's easy to forget they were actually in this poor excuse for a movie.

When I first bought the DVD to this movie, even though I had no idea how good, or bad(as the case may be), it would be, I was really chuffed with myself, having found it in the sales for 2 pounds. And even more pleased at the till, where it seemed the guy forgot to swipe it properly with the rest of my items so I didn't even pay for it! Now I see the nice man at the till had obviously seen this film, felt sorry for me, and that watching this film was going to be punishment enough that he shouldn't make me pay for it as well.

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2 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Revenge of the 80's: C. Thomas Howell superstar, 21 August 2005

Author: Joseph P. Ulibas (sirjosephu@aol.com) from Sacramento, CA

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Soul Man (1986) was a terrible movie that was produced during that era of "quality film making" the eighties. Stars like C. Thomas Howell represented the "new generation" of actors. Like many of THE OUTSIDERS alumni. The movie is about a spoiled rich kid who learns from his father that he has to pay for his own college tuition. Not one to spend the next few years of his life paying his way into one of the biggest university's in the country, C. Thomas Howell does the next best thing besides winning the lottery. He pulls off one the biggest scams in history. Conning the people at Harvard (and the paying audience) into believing he's a Black man.

Well the dude pulls of the scam (defying realism and logic) and lives like a "Black" man for awhile. But this lame knock-off of BLACK LIKE ME is bad (and not in the good way). He has to endure the usual racism and bigotry from the while folks. Good times of a free ride in college don't last long. He's outed by some acquaintances and he soon he brought up on fraud charges. This movie tries to get the audience to learn a lesson about acceptance and tolerance. Even though they try to beat the viewers over the head with an empty message, it falls flat. Just another bad movie that derails the young C. Thomas Howell's acting career. Followed (sort of ) by Far Out Man.

The movie has quite a few heavy hitters in this one. Julia Louise-Dreyfus, James Earl Jones, Leslie Nielsen, (eighties stalwart Ayre Gross) and Rae Dawn Chong (Tommy's little girl).

Not recommended unless you're a fan of 80's films.

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3 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
I know I've seen him somewhere!, 3 February 2003

Author: bouledogue from Saint Paul, MN

Regrettable exercise in trying to resolve racial issues through humor, resulting in compounding the problem. A white youth, unable to get into college because of minority preference rules, poses as a black student (!) and receives a scholarship which, it turns out, would have otherwise gone to the black girl student at the very same university whom he just happens to fall in love with.

What a bunch of coincidences! What a conundrum! What a disastrous concept! The unlikelihood of the imposture succeeding is only the chief blunder; fear not, there are many others to discover. Amazingly, a competent cast signed up for this idiotic movie, including C. Thomas Howell, who specializes in looking good in bad movies, and, more surprisingly, James Earl Jones, who plays a black college law professor who can't tell that C. Thomas is wearing blackface. And you wonder why students don't learn anything in college.

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3 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
On the level of John Hughes comedies!, 10 April 2002
Author: Jhangir Khwaja from London, England

I remember watching Soul Man about twelve years ago when it was first aired on TV. Crazy, hilarious, sarcastic, emotional; what the hell I could go on forever describing this film.

This is the only film besides "The Outsiders" that C. Thomas Howell played a dual role of himself and a black student impersona. Okay I can agree with some comments that movie began to over step it's bounderies with the way African American culture was dealt with, but at the smae time I felt that it was stabalized with the humour adding that extra touch rather than people taking it more "Politically correct" way.

James Earl Jones and Rae Dawn Chong both did fabulous jobs as there acting really help give their characters' some edge that made it somewhat convincing.

Overall a brilliant film. If you can try to avoid the fact that it might be cliched of dealing with racial differences in a light hearted manner. Remember this is a comedy and not something to take "SERIOUSLY".

Another quality film from the 80's to add to the hitlist.

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3 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Has its moments, but predictable and pretty lame, 30 March 2001

Author: mattymatt4ever from Jersey City, NJ

This is the type of movie that only could've been made in the 80's, 'cause if it were released in present day the NAACP and other African-American organizations would've fried this movie like an egg.

It's not terribly offensive, but there are moments where racism is condoned, though it doesn't blatantly show it. It tries to show us, in after-school special format, that it is proving some moral by showing us the raunchy stereotypes. Like reverse psychology. But it also tries to get laughs from those stereotypes. So it pretty much loses the point.

I laughed a few times, and I wasn't bored. This is a pretty lame comedy with a plot as predictable as night and day, but it moves along in a slick '80's teen-bopper flick style. The premise is preposterous and the film gets more preposterous by the minute, but some laughs are drawn from that stupidity. However, there are no big laughs. And the whole film plays like a sitcom, trying way too hard, and failing more often than it should.

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