Hats off to the Onion AV crew for assembling a spot-on list of movies starring "Magical African-American Friends" with no job in the narrative save to solve Whitey's problems. Witness:
5. Bruce Almighty (2003)
Who could be magical than God himself? With his calm self-assurance, Morgan Freeman makes as good a God as any, though before long, he turns the reins over to Jim Carrey, a local TV weatherman who uses his newfound powers in the least imaginative way possible by giving his wife bigger breasts and turning himself into Buffalo's top newscaster. Ever patient, Freeman-as-God waits behind the scenes for Carrey to learn his lesson and think about the global consequences of his selfish actions, to say nothing of the millions of prayers that have piled up unanswered. Freeman's divine style is pretty laissez faire, however: "When a child says 'no' to drugs and 'yes' to an education," that constitutes a miracle in his eyes.
Well, spot-on as far as it goes. MIA is Number 1 boy weepie, the flick I ruthlessly mock students for naming as their favorite: The Shawshank Redemption. [Admit it, I'm right.]
*Buy Brother Skip's books. That's what he'd tell you. Also, this.