“Barbershop” takes an often humorous, often-preachy look at a cornerstone of an African-American neighborhood, where the locals come together to get braided, faded and, apparently, educated. The film’s barbershop is used as a forum to discuss issues both light and heavy, and while the film never digs too deep, it offers witty commentary. Ice Cube is Calvin, proprietor of a South Chicago barbershop he reluctantly inherits when his father passes away. Cube’s role has a familiar feel: the low key, earnest, gruff-yet-lovable stand-up guy who manages somehow to get himself into a royal mess (see “Friday,” “Next Friday,” and “Three Kings”). Fed up with the shop’s debt and what he perceives as the liability of the shop’s inner-city location, Calvin sells the shop to the local loan shark (Keith David), clad in pastel suits and a fedora, who must be evil since he wears a hairpiece in a film called “Barbershop.” Taking place in the course of one day, a la “Friday” and “Next Friday,” we start in the morning and follow Calvin to work where we meet the diverse employees of the shop. They include pretentious college student Jimmy (Sean Patrick Thomas, “Save the Last Dance”), pretty-boy thug Ricky (newcomer Michael Ealy) and Isaac, the white guy no one will let near his hair (line-slurring Troy Garity, son of Jane Fonda). All achieve some success fleshing out the stereotypes they portray, especially Thomas. Rap star Eve is the shop’s lone woman employee and the latest in a recent slew of rappers turned actors. The role isn’t much of a stretch, allowing her to showcase her trademark sassy toughness.
Striving for an uplifting message about the importance of community, “Barbershop” succeeds despite the sometimes random and seemingly unprompted lectures and a side story of two bumbling ATM thieves that gets enough screen time to make the unfortunate transition from knee-slapping to watch-checking. The success is due to rich, funny vignettes of everyday life in the ‘hood and an ensemble of appealing characters led by the master of likeability, Ice Cube. This ultimately leads us to the same conclusion Calvin comes to: despite its flaws, “Barbershop” is worth saving.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
