Barbershop: The Next Cut

2.5/4

Starring: Ice Cube, Regina King, Common, Eve, Nicki Minaj, Cedric the Entertainer, Michael Rainey Jr.

Rated PG-13 for Sexual Material and Language

I haven't seen the first three installments of the popular "Barbershop" franchise, nor "Beauty Shop," the spin-off with Queen Latifah.  However, this is more or less a stand-alone movie.  I expect those who are well acquainted with Calvin (Cube) and his crew of hairstylists on the South Side of Chicago will get more out of it, but I never got too lost myself.

Calvin is still running the barbershop with his group of a half dozen or so barbers.  They trade trash talk and quips about this and that, particularly about their lives and the men and women living in it.  However, the violence is getting to Calvin.  His son Jalen (Rainey Jr) is getting into fights and toeing ever closer to moving his shop to the North Side.  But after ex-barber turned politician Jimmy (Sean Patrick Thomas) proposes building a gate to contain the bloodshed (which will dramatically cut down on the shop's business), Calvin and Co. decide to take it upon themselves to fix the neighborhood.  They get the rival gang leaders together to declare a cease-fire for a weekend and offer a weekend of free haircuts.

For a comedy, the humor is the least successful aspect of it.  In addition to being neither funny nor particularly insightful, it's not there.  The running plotline about the free weekend of haircuts takes up most of the running time, but it doesn't make a lot of sense.  The most successful part of the film is Calvin's attempts to keep his son away from gang life.  It works because director Malcom D. Lee has a better feel for dramatic material and the relationship between father and son works.

"Barbershop: The Next Cut" has something to say.  It knows that gang violence is a huge problem, but it also understands that the problem is too complex for simple fixes.  The anger in this aspect of the story is felt, but not over-played.  The film is not a rant.  Instead, it's about finding a solution.  While the one proposed here is too simple to be applicable in the real world, the ideal rings true and is illustrated with enough realism that any potential preachiness is minimal.

The acting is solid, but the writing is too weak and the tone too simple for anyone to do anything special.  Ice Cube is fine in the highly charged moments, but has trouble in the quieter scenes.  Cedric the Entertainer, the franchise's breakout actor, is supposed to be funny, I guess, but I couldn't understand a damn thing he was saying.  Of the supporting characters, the only ones who get any screen time are Rashad (Common), Terri (Eve) and Draya (Minaj).  Their subplot about communication in a relationship rings true, even if it could use a little more subtlety.

"Barbershop: The Next Cut" is like that.  It's not great, but it's at least not a trial.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Desert Flower

2/4 Starring: Liya Kebede, Sally Hawkins, Timothy Spall, Juliet Stevenson Rated R for Some Violent Content, A Scene of Sexuality and Language The problem with "Desert Flower" is not that Waris Dirie's story isn't suited for the cinematic treatment or that the actress playing her isn't acceptable.  The problem is that director Sherry Hormann doesn't do a good job of telling it.  This is a poorly focused film that can't decide what it wants to be about or what it wants to say. As is the case with many a true story, the life of Waris Dirie is too amazing to be made up by a Hollywood screenwriter.  This woman fled an arranged marriage as a child, spent years as a servant to a Somali diplomat in England, survived on the streets, and was discovered by a fashion photographer while working as a janitor.  Then she became a supermodel and UN Ambassador in the fight against female genital mutilation. Waris experienced a lot in her life.  Telling it all in a...
Read more

The Road

3.5/4 Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron Rated R for Some Violence, Disturbing Images and Language "The Road" has to be the most downbeat, depressing and cynical movie I've ever seen.  That's not meant as a criticism, but a fact.  This is a tough movie to get through, but not a chore.  Those who venture in will find their time well spent, albeit not in a necessarily pleasant way.  Then again, if a movie is based off a novel by Cormac McCarthy, "pleasant" isn't a word one would hope to be used to describe it. The film takes place after the world has ended.  How it happened is not explained because it doesn't matter.  But any hope of the Earth recovering from what happened has long since gone.  A man (Mortensen) and his son (Smit-McPhee) are travelling together, trying to "get to the coast."  There are few people left, although considering what many are doing with the goal of survival, that's a good thing...
Read more

My Left Foot

 2/4 Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Brenda Fricker, Ray McAnally, Fiona Shaw, Alison Whelan Rated R (probably for Language and Brief Violence) "My Left Foot" feels like one of those movies designed to win Oscars and nothing else.  In fact, it did win two Oscars for the immortal Daniel Day-Lewis and Brenda Fricker, but apart from their strong work, there's not much else to remember about this movie.  It's well-acted, but all in all it's pretty dull. Christy Brown (Day-Lewis) is getting recognized for his work in order to raise money for the disabled.  Despite being a talented artist and writer, Christy is not the ideal candidate for the job.  He's an alcoholic jerk who makes no secret of his lust for women nor is he above using his disability to manipulate people into doing what he wants.  Interspersed with his attempts to seduce a woman tasked with looking after him while he awaits his entrance are vignettes from his childhood.  Most notably how his mothe...
Read more