Barbershop Review
by Eugene Novikov (eugenen AT wharton DOT upenn DOT edu)September 13th, 2002
Barbershop (2002)
Reviewed by Eugene Novikov
http://www.ultimate-movie.com/
Starring Ice Cube, Anthony Anderson, Cedric the Entertainer, Leonard Howze, Troy Garrity, Eve, Sean Patrick Thomas, Lorenzo Clemons, J. David Shanks.
Directed by Tim Story.
Rated PG-13.
"These guys can't tell the difference between a woman with a big ass and a big-ass woman."
The barbershop in Barbershop is intended to be one of the great, timeless screen establishments, like Barry Levinson's Diner, the "Cheers" bar, or the "Seinfeld" coffee shop. It was not to be. A series of small mistakes factors into director Tim Story's failure to turn his film's titular location into something memorable: the set design, the cinematography and the script details are all a little off, and the film didn't convince me that Calvin Jr.'s Barbershop represents some sort of beacon of hope in the middle of Chicago's South Side. It doesn't help that the rest of the movie is sketchy and erratic, with an inept buddy-comedy storyline distracting from what is an admittedly pretty interesting story about a guy trying to escape the shadow of his beloved father.
The basic story is a variation on the "save the family business before the bank forecloses/gangsters move in" plot. In this case it's both, actually, as Calvin Jr. (Ice Cube) tries to pay the bills and reverse a foolish decision to sell the shop to a local chop-shop operator who plans to turn his family's fabled establishment into a gentlemen's club. He maintains an entertaining motley crew of employees, from Eddie (Cedric the Entertainer), the crotchety old guy with some controversial theories about African-American history, to Terri (Eve), the tough young woman who hollers bloody murder when someone drinks her apple juice, to a Nigerian immigrant whose accent is milked for every joke it can possibly provide, to the obligatory college-educated "sell-out" and the white guy who is resented because he tries to act black. The place is essentially a hang-out, and the guys and gals don't so much cut hair as they laugh, argue, bicker and have a good time. Small wonder that it doesn't turn a profit.
The movie occasionally jumps to a loosely related storyline about a couple of idiotic crooks (Anthony Anderson and Lahmard Tate) who steal an ATM from a local convenience store and spend the rest of the movie carting it around the city, avoiding the cops and trying in vain to open the hermetically sealed box that, we later learn, doesn't actually contain any cash. The filmmakers spend an unreasonable amount of time on what is nothing more than a set-up for Calvin Jr. to show that he is a stand-up guy by bailing out one of his employees; the plotline goes literally nowhere, and we don't even get the pay-off of the two finally getting the thing open and discovering the distinct lack of cash inside.
The barbershop scenes are curious. The feel of the place is never established; many sequences are filmed entirely in close-ups, simply flipping from one actor's face to another, which doesn't allow the shop to take on a personality of its own. It should have become another character in the movie, but it remains a bland and ineffectual place. Tim Story and his set designer don't bother to give it any sort of distinctive look: not that of a classical, old-time barbershop (even though we're told it's been around forever) nor any other memorable aesthetic quality.
I will admit that I am not necessarily in a position to understand everything that Barbershop brings up. I wasn't sure what to think when the movie asserted that the ability to cut hair is a metaphor for urban identity. I am certain that it is so callow that it expects us to be surprised when -- gasp! -- black people express differing political and social viewpoints. Its supposedly cosmopolitan view of race relations is curtailed by nasty little additions like the stereotypical Indian convenience store owner who throws a fit.
There's some good stuff here. I still maintain that Ice Cube is quite a talented actor, though he is more effective playing a badass like in Ghosts of Mars than he is as a nice, tempered guy like Calvin. I liked the theme of Calvin escaping his father's shadow while staying true to dad's legacy, though the solution to the conflict struck me as way too easy and convenient (spoiler warning: if all he needed to save the shop was the police, why didn't he go to them in the first place?). But the movie never lives down its tragic flaw: we never feel that the barbershop of the title is worth saving.
Grade: C-
©2002 Eugene Novikov
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