Top Box Office Movies

Soul Plane (2004) MGM/UA
1 hr. 27 mins.
Starring: Tom Arnold, Kevin Hart, Method Man, Snoop Dogg, D.L. Hughley, Mo’nique, K.D. Aubert, Brian Hooks, Godfrey
Directed by: Jessy Terrero

Soul Plane

Rating:

E-MAIL FRANK OCHIENG

Photo: MGM/UA

The bothersome turbulence that most of the sensible audience will be experiencing is courtesy of director Jessy Terrero’s woefully rancid gagfest Soul Plane, a hideous hip hop spoof of the most disposable kind. Destined to be compared and contrasted to the same frivolous formula that made 1980’s Airplane! all the twisted rage, Terrero’s knucklehead of a narrative is a vile assault on the eyes and ears. One will emerge from this raunchy and mindless ethnic romp needing to take a shower in the car wash just to rub off the disagreeable cinematic scent of this crude embarrassment. Needlessly insipid in its cultural crassness, Soul Plane proves to be a disturbingly bumpy flight and one will be left wondering how in the world something so meaningless and atrocious can get green-lighted as a piece of credible entertainment. This is the worst kind of racial rubbish suited appropriately for the barf bag.

If Terrero and his sordid cast were skillful enough, Soul Plane could have been a welcomed hoot had it bothered to be wickedly insightful in its savagery. When you think about it, doing a wacky movie about the nation’s first black-owned airline could have had some riotous possibilities and provided some shrewd commentary about two of a resourceful comedian’s favorite punchline targets: race relations and the airline experience. However, all Terrero and his clownish crew can muster up are regurgitated rowdy cheap laughs that take a lazy poke at urban blackness and sexual stereotyping without one ounce of cleverness attached to their belt buckles. Hence, Soul Plane is a gross and gimmicky display of an insult that never should be permitted a decent landing on the big screen. Now that’s not to say that some flagrant fare featuring rambunctious behavior cannot be palatable because when it’s done right, the unbreakable prim and proper prude would even have to crack a smile at some point. But Terrero’s choppy and unimaginative mess of a movie merely relies on its mean-spirited streak and cops out tremendously with its funky foolishness.

The premise involves the African-American airline NWA and its eventual founder named Nashawn (Kevin Hart), an unemployed young black man with the penchant for running at the mouth. When Nashawn feels disrespected on the plane (thanks to an errant toilet bowl gone astray), he puts up a fuss and manages to hold the airline accountable for his so-called shabby treatment. As a result of his inconvenience with the insensitive airline, Nashawn is rewarded with a handsome $100 million settlement. It is with this lucrative money that he begins developing his own flying outfit NWA along with his sidekick/cousin Mugsy (Method Man).

As one can imagine, the high jinks ensue with Nashawn and his disoriented staff trying their best to ensure that the first flight leaves the ground without any complications. Naturally, the NWA employees and the passengers wouldn’t know what it would be like on the Soul Plane if everything ran smoothly, now would they? Gradually, it appears that almost every known horror-related happening is taking place just in time to infiltrate the plans for takeoff.

Of course the colorful personalities that make up the passenger list contribute to the chaos from the get go. Maybe some will get a chuckle from a pesky blind man (John Witherspoon) that likes to feel up the flight attendants at random as his personal Braille babes. And let’s not forget the token white family named The Hunkees (gee, how insanely crafty) on board to serve as funny fodder for the easily amused ebony crewmembers. Father Elvis Hunkee (Tom Arnold) is the innocuous dolt that heads the clan. His female companion is a stuck-up materialistic moll that harbors a Jungle Fever-yearning toward well-built black guys. The Hunkee kids are the prototype of spoiled youths with the daughter being insolent and the son donning a nebbish persona. Ultimately, the Hunkees learn to assimilate with the Soul Plane staff and before you can utter the phrase Vanilla Ice, these folks are indoctrinated into the same gangsta lifestyle as their surrounding soulful peers. And one had to know that it was a matter of time before the Hunkee boy would start emulating the style of dress and dialogue like some annoying pint-sized Eminem.

In terms of the Soul Plane staffers, they too are a scream to behold. The pilot (Snoop Dogg) is a former convict that has an aversion to heights when he’s not polishing off a weed cigarette. His effeminate co-pilot is named, get this, Gaeman (this is almost as witty as the white family named Hunkee, huh?). Plus, who can dismiss the hefty honey security checkers out to get a good feel on fine-looking “brothas” while performing cavity checks? A club attendant (D.L. Hughley) provides cute commentary on the bowel movements of the relieving donors. In the meanwhile, Nashawn runs into an old flame (K.D. Aubert) and schemes to win her heart once again amid the madness in the high skies.

Granted that Soul Plane tires to cut to its subversive chase and let everything shamelessly hang out. The bewildering thought behind this 87-minute overwrought Def Comedy Jam skit is that the majority of the black audience may not even as so much blink an eye in disgust for the damaging goings-on that are being perpetuated in this blasphemous sideshow. It seems as if Terrero and his mostly black cast have no guilt whatsoever for orchestrating this contemporary mundane minstrel show. And yet people have a nerve to talk about the eye-rolling and shuffling of black performers selling out some sixty years ago to racist Hollywood studio heads? Unfortunately, powerless black entertainers couldn’t control the perception of how they were viewed upon the big screen. Tell me, what is the excuse nowadays for some irresponsible (and nicely compensated) black showstoppers to act like glorified and ghettoized fools?

As trashy as this vacuous vehicle is, the stars of this ribald eye sore are strangely up to the task of giving a spirited life to the lewd lunacy they proudly strut around in without apprehension. Soul Plane takes stock in beating its hollow chest about the storied black myths and mines them for insufferable laughs. This movie has more nervy and uncontrollable bounce than a hoochie’s shapely booty stuffed in a pair of tight gym shorts. Take your pick at the assortment of punching bag propaganda meant as a hillside of hilarity. How about tired sight gags concerning a purple plane with chrome wheels that sparkle? Or oversexed black studs and sirens looking to get their groove on? What about drug-taking as a fun-loving hobby? There are always the obligatory references to black women and their babies’ several daddies to consider with giddy forethought. We cannot forget a “playas” club where loud and tacky outfits that are certifiably obnoxious come with the territory. Gee, how quaint.

Relentlessly tasteless and dissolving, Soul Plane is one aircraft that needs a good hijacking. It’s high time that certain black artists should stop courting a destructive and dimwitted image and condemn the nonsensical stage show that threatens to bog them down creatively. It’s one thing to be roguish and satirically go with the flow and take uncensored risks. However, it’s another thing to inexplicably contribute to your own derogatory demise. Invariably, this whole silly-minded session is not funny but in essence very revealing in its unassuming sadness.

When someone like Tom Arnold emerges from this grandly uninviting dud as the only sensible and sympathetic element in an utterly flavorless farce, you know for sure that one of the movie god’s must have puffed on too many of Snoop Dogg’s “special” smokes.

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Frank Ochieng
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