Soul Men'We are really makes you miss Bernie Mac

Soul Men'We are really makes you miss Bernie Mac

The funniest bit in the crude but diverting "Soul Men" really makes you miss Bernie Mac, who died in August, a few months after completing the picture.

Mac plays one half of the Real Deal, a Pips-like backup duo for a charismatic lead singer ( John Legend) who eventually went solo, leaving his former partners to languish. We're prepped by a brisk prologue and then, present day: Mac's character, Floyd, is being put out to suburban, highly manicured pasture by his nephew-manager, while Samuel L. Jackson's Louis ekes out a life in what looks like an SRO apartment. When their former cohort dies, VH1 announces a tribute concert to be held on the other side of the country, at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem. Floyd wants to do it in the worst way, but he must persuade Louis to bury their long-held grudge (they loved the same woman, who left a daughter behind, now grown).

The standout bit in this fractious, formulaic comedy is simplicity itself. Bam, Jackson slams his apartment door on Mac, and Mac's left muttering by his lonesome out in a dingy hallway. The camera stays put while Mac—improvising, no doubt, and fruitfully—argues with his ex-partner as though he were still within earshot. It's not much, but the laughs build and you realize that Mac is pulling them out of some unseen top hat.

Too much of "Soul Men" relies on violent, bone-crunching slapstick and Viagra jokes, and Jennifer Coolidge taking out her false teeth before jumping Mac's bones. It's basically a road movie, with Louis and Floyd driving and arguing and reconciling and arguing cross-country, performing practice gigs along the way. The music certainly helps, and even though the stars don't do all their own dancing, the vocals, apparently, are theirs. And they're fun. They're having fun, and the fun translates when the script loosens its straps. Mac and Jackson transcend this hopped-up version of "The Sunshine Boys," this "Grumpy Old Soul Men," and when Mac lets loose with that fantastic little laugh of his—the one that sounds like an electric mower starting up—you forget all the junk.

The pluses also include Sharon Leal, lately seen in "Dreamgirls," as Cleo, the Tulsa daughter of the guys' uneasily shared ex. Cleo's abusive, drug-dealing hip-hop wannabe lover is played by Affion Crockett, in a very broad style, halfway to egregious stereotype. The director, Malcolm D. Lee, has done fizzier work in the past, at least in the underrated comedy "Roll Bounce," but despite some of the cruddiest lighting since "What Happens in Vegas" (shot by the same cinematographer, Matthew Leonetti) the movie bumps along, and by the time it gets to the (fake) Apollo for the big concert, you're sort of with it. An unexpectedly good scene arrives very late, involving Mac, Jackson and the deceased tribute honoree, and the end credits are devoted to a tribute to Mac, complete with interview footage, along with an ancillary tribute to Isaac Hayes, who takes a supporting role as himself in "Soul Men." Hayes died one day after Mac did, in August. They deserved a terrific send-off, and this one's only fair, but it has its low-down wiles and its moments.