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Soul Plane lacks humor, but being funny is not its aim. Instead, it tries to blackmail viewers into laughter by invoking pseudo-logic: this is supposed to be a comedy; a comedy’s a party; if you’re not having a good time, it must be your own damn fault. From the start, the movie tries to shock you out of your inhibitions with a scene in which the hero (Kevin Hart) gets his ass stuck in the potty of an airplane lavatory and, in the ensuing alarm, his beloved dog gets sucked into a jet engine. Awarded $100 million in damages, he starts his own airline, NWA, whose maiden flight becomes the pretext for a series of vignettes trading in black and white stereotypes. Meant to be "offensive" in a bland, chiding, hey-let’s-not-be-all-PC way, Soul Plane is dismaying in its timidity. Gags that should work in theory are spoiled by an execution that never establishes any satirical point of view. In both mocking and endorsing his stereotypes (the cast includes Snoop Dogg as a pilot who can’t fly and Tom Arnold as a white passenger), director Jessy Terrero might be accused of having his cake and eating it, if there were any cake. (87 minutes)
BY CHRIS FUJIWARA
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