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Barbershop
Directed by Tim Story
Screenplay by Mark Brown, Don D. Scott and Marshall Todd
Cast includes Ice Cube, Cedric The Entertainer, Eve and Keith David (among others)
Rated PG-13
Ever have a day where you feel like you’d like to chuck it all and start over doing something else? That’s the way Calvin (played very affectingly by rapper Ice Cube) feels about the barber shop he has inherited from his father. After two years of trying to make a go of it in a run down neighborhood in Chicago, he’s ready to sell out. But the day of his big decision (he has a cash offer from a sleazy local business man , played by Keith David, who wants to use the space for a strip club) a lot happens to influence his decision.
We get to see how the characters who inhabit the shop (both the staff of barbers – six male, one female , six black, one white -- and the long term customers) have come to regard the place as more than just a place to work, or just to get a haircut. For some, it is the community center where the local charity of the week is promoted, for others, the springboard for their social life. The free-flowing conversation reveals a lot about their attitudes and their dreams. And shows a lot of true wit.
While the conversation is unfolding in and around the chairs, in a humorous subplot, inter-cut throughout the movie,, a duo of hapless thieves is struggling with a purloined ATM machine that they hauled off from a store across the street from the barber shop. One problem – they borrowed one of the barber ‘s truck to do the heist and he already had two felony convictions, so involvement with a third could be his permanent ticket to prison. That has a lot to do with some of the character development we witness among the shop regulars – and the store owner’s ultimate decision about his shop.
Tim Story made his studio-sponsored directing debut with this film. He could turn out to be the next Spike Lee. His ensemble cast did a fine job interacting as if in real life and pulling off some really clever bits. The story’s resolution may have been a bit unrealistic, but it did successfully pull everything together (but HOW it did that, you will have to see for yourselves). The real fun was not in the plot(s) but in the fast paced, witty but natural sounding conversation among the characters. I imagine the second time through, I’ll catch even more of the clever humor.
I caught a matinee of the film with an appreciative audience. (“Barbershop” ended up being the number one box office draw this past weekend, so we weren’t alone going to see it.) They laughed at a lot of the lines (as did I) and applauded some of the points the characters made about issues of the day – and on the whole, I think everyone there really enjoyed the show.
“Barbershop” isn’t going to ever going to be in AFI’s top 100, but it is still a lot of fun and very much worth seeing. Recommended.
Burke
Directed by Tim Story
Screenplay by Mark Brown, Don D. Scott and Marshall Todd
Cast includes Ice Cube, Cedric The Entertainer, Eve and Keith David (among others)
Rated PG-13
Ever have a day where you feel like you’d like to chuck it all and start over doing something else? That’s the way Calvin (played very affectingly by rapper Ice Cube) feels about the barber shop he has inherited from his father. After two years of trying to make a go of it in a run down neighborhood in Chicago, he’s ready to sell out. But the day of his big decision (he has a cash offer from a sleazy local business man , played by Keith David, who wants to use the space for a strip club) a lot happens to influence his decision.
We get to see how the characters who inhabit the shop (both the staff of barbers – six male, one female , six black, one white -- and the long term customers) have come to regard the place as more than just a place to work, or just to get a haircut. For some, it is the community center where the local charity of the week is promoted, for others, the springboard for their social life. The free-flowing conversation reveals a lot about their attitudes and their dreams. And shows a lot of true wit.
While the conversation is unfolding in and around the chairs, in a humorous subplot, inter-cut throughout the movie,, a duo of hapless thieves is struggling with a purloined ATM machine that they hauled off from a store across the street from the barber shop. One problem – they borrowed one of the barber ‘s truck to do the heist and he already had two felony convictions, so involvement with a third could be his permanent ticket to prison. That has a lot to do with some of the character development we witness among the shop regulars – and the store owner’s ultimate decision about his shop.
Tim Story made his studio-sponsored directing debut with this film. He could turn out to be the next Spike Lee. His ensemble cast did a fine job interacting as if in real life and pulling off some really clever bits. The story’s resolution may have been a bit unrealistic, but it did successfully pull everything together (but HOW it did that, you will have to see for yourselves). The real fun was not in the plot(s) but in the fast paced, witty but natural sounding conversation among the characters. I imagine the second time through, I’ll catch even more of the clever humor.
I caught a matinee of the film with an appreciative audience. (“Barbershop” ended up being the number one box office draw this past weekend, so we weren’t alone going to see it.) They laughed at a lot of the lines (as did I) and applauded some of the points the characters made about issues of the day – and on the whole, I think everyone there really enjoyed the show.
“Barbershop” isn’t going to ever going to be in AFI’s top 100, but it is still a lot of fun and very much worth seeing. Recommended.
Burke
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