Saturday, November 27, 2021

The Review: Soul Food (1997)


Soul Food 5/10


I saw Soul Food a few days ago and have sat on reviewing it and talking to folk about it and dropped it a point since then. Why? Because this movie has a terrible message which is: if they are family you should forgive them no matter what. This movie has everything. Sunday dinners. Divorce. Cheating. Arguing. Guns. Greens. A horny pastor. Diabetes. Its like the recipe for a Black film. And its long and I definitely felt it at times, usually when there was music playing. This is told through a boy named Ahmad. His mother is Maxine who started dating and married a dude that her older sister Teri liked. Teri is still mad about it all these years later and after being married multiple times since then. The youngest sister Bird just married a felon named Lem who dances with this woman at the wedding and she is rubbing her booty all over his dickbone. It was so disrespectful.



So every Sunday the family meets at Big Mama's house to eat a bunch of food that likely contributed to her terrible health. Seriously, its like Thanksgiving every Sunday. They find out that Big Mama has diabetes and its so bad she has to get her leg cut off but she doesn't want to. She gets the operation finally and ends up in a coma. The family immediately gets even worse than before. While she is in a coma Lem who can not find work gets a job and the dude who got it for him rubs it in and is also a dude that used to fuck with Bird so Lem heads to her job and yells at her. Teri thinks he hit her so she sends some goon cousins to attack him and they get their asses kicked but Lem gets arrested because he is a felon with a gun. Teri's husband fucks a cousin and gets caught. And then Big Mama dies.



Ahmad comes up with an idea to get the family together. And by an idea I mean a lie. He says Big Mama mentioned some hidden money and tells everyone he will meet them to talk about it. Its a ploy to make a big dinner with everyone there. Then he almost burns the house down. Oh, and Uncle Pete who has mental issues but is kept in his room all the time comes out with a TV full of money and everything is better after this. I mean, at one point Teri sees the cousin who fucked her husband and comes at her with a knife. No cops called. She is a lawyer. Her husband who is a lawyer saw this. An entire party saw this and its just like “Woo, y'all crazy!” and its never mentioned again. This has the nerve to have a happy ending but I am so jaded and unforgiving that I could not be happy for this raggedy ass family and just know that sooner rather than later they will fall apart and fight again.


Vanessa Williams as Teri

Vivica A. Fox as Maxine

Nia Long as Bird

Michael Beach as Miles

Mekhi Phifer as Lem

Gina Ravera as Faith

Brandon Hammond as Ahmad

Irma P. Hall as Josephine "Big Mama" Joseph

Jeffrey D. Sams as Kenny

Click here for previous The Review.



All over his dickbone. I wasn't lying!

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