Failed to meet my low expectations

Rating: 2/10 (5 February 2009)

There were 2 aspects to the 1980's movie "Soul Man", and they have each been featured in their own 2008 movie. Robert Downey Junior stole the show in "Tropic Thunder" by revisiting the concept of a White Man acting like a Black Man. 21 revisited the idea of a successful Harvard applicant faced with the daunting task of having to pay its steep tuition.
However, that's where the comparisons end. While "Tropic Thunder" used the main premise of "Soul Man" as a comedic sidebar, this movie used its sidebar as the main premise. No one wants to feel sorry for someone who's admitted into Harvard but can't pay for it. If you got in there, odds are you'd be accepted into a state school which you can most likely afford. Once C. Thomas Howell accepted the scholarship in "Soul Man", his inability to pay was no longer an issue. He simply had to live his life undercover as a black student. Ben Campbell never had any obligation to maintain any of his cover stories, only to use a different one each night. C. Thomas Howell was pulled over for no reason by racist cops. Ben Campbell was only caught because he stayed too long at the same table of the same casino.
Ben Campbell experienced the seedy underworld of the Las Vegas High Roller. In doing so, he abandoned his close college friends. He then realized that card counting was too risky of a lifestyle to wish on anybody, so he made up with his friends by...teaching them how to count cards? If he had been a drug dealer, would he have ended the movie by giving his friends his remaining crack to sell? I'm proud of him for Graduating from MIT and being accepted into Harvard Medical School, but that doesn't make up for the fact that he never explained the moral of his story. Other than that he now has a story to tell to his admissions officer. Wow, that's deep...