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'Soul Plane' flies low but manages some laughs

The folks who made "Soul Plane" have achieved two significant accomplishments: They've revived the "Airplane!"-style disaster spoof for the post-9/11 world, and they've taken bathroom humor to new heights of, um, turbulence.

Other than that, this is a real hit-and-miss compendium of racial, intoxicant and sex jokes that could have used more narrative push and stronger quality control.

The basic idea is that an African-American-owned airline would take a ghetto-fabulous approach to the friendly skies: on-board dance club, washroom attendants, chrome spinner landing wheels, etc. It's the dream come true of a wayward entrepreneur, Nashawn Wade (Kevin Hart of TV's "The Big House"), who invests the lawsuit money he won from another airline (yes, it was over a lavatory incident) in the venture, which he dubs NWA.

The maiden L.A.-to-New York flight is piloted by stoner Capt. Mack (Snoop Dogg), whose credentials are by nature dubious. The one frightened white family who got transferred from another carrier onto NWA is headed by Tom Arnold. The flight attendants dress like strippers, the strippers keep their bikinis on, an old blind guy acts dirty, and an excited couple find themselves in many uncomfortable situations while trying to join the Mile High Club.

It's all done fairly exuberantly, no matter how lame or insulting a given gag turns out to be. Director Jessy Terrero, a tourist from the world of music videos, displays some capacity for intermittent comic timing but little ability to sustain and raise the humor stakes as the journey proceeds. The Zucker brothers have nothing to worry about. But they should probably thank the "Soul Plane" brain trust for making the skies once again safe for burlesque.

FILM FACTS


TITLE:

"Soul Plane"

DIRECTOR:

Jessy Terrero

CAST:

Kevin Hart, Tom Arnold, Snoop Dogg, Method Man, Mo'Nique, Sofia Vergara, D.L. Hughley, John Witherspoon

RATED:

R (language, toilet humor, sex, drug use)

GRADE:

2½(on a scale of 5)

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