Soul Man

One of the funniest scenes occurs when Mark Watson (Howell) is having dinner with his white girlfriend’s family and each member imagines his/her stereotypical image of him: The mother perceives him to be an African savage, the younger brother a Prince-esque singer and perhaps the most humorous of all is Leslie Neilson as the father, who imagines him to be a Superfly style pimp. Overall, this is about as well rounded as they come, with Howell clearly proving himself to be a more than capable comic/serious actor, in fact, judging from the calibre of his work in this, The Outsiders and The Hitcher, it seems strange that he never really made it beyond the 80s.

Soul Man is as much a satire on perception and race as it is a laugh out loud sitcom, the "casual" prejudice Howell comes across whilst he's black, reminded me of a friend of mine, who used to protest that every time he walked by old ladies in the street they'd clutch their purses closer to themselves and move away (a scene which is similarly played out in the movie as well) The romantic subplot between Howell and Rae Dawn Chong could’ve easily run up a bill of clichés, were it not for James Earl Jones' no-nonsense law lecturer, who keeps this movie on course by punctuating every scene he's in with some serious cynicism and a bevy of sharp one-liners like "…if you insist on making jokes in my class, please see to it that they are funny" and if that’s not your kind of humour, then you'll definitely find something of interest in the classic sign-language scene, overall, a well thought out movie with great supporting performances by Chong, Neilson and even Maree Cheatham/James Sikking as Howell's parents, Soul Man is a movie that's so 80s you'll feel as if you never left the decade: An underrated classic.