Barbershop
Is Good—Could Use Some Trimming

By Jeff Eason

Last week in an interview with The Mountain Times, novelist Tim O’Brien discussed his writing technique. He writes fairly quickly and then spends days, weeks, even years, in the revision process. Even after the book has been published as a hardback novel, O’Brien is still making revisions to the text for the paperback edition.

It is a shame that the same revision process cannot be put to work for some movies. Now and then a “director’s cut” version is released on video which is substantially different than the theatrical release, but it usually means adding previously edited scenes rather than creating a truly new edition of the movie.

A case in point is the new release Barbershop. The movie is good but could have been a lot better if the directors had dropped some of the juvenile “big ass” jokes and kept the action inside the friendly confines of the Chicago neighborhood barbershop. Instead viewers are constantly treated to side stories involving a stolen ATM machine and a local loan shark—scenes that dilute the movie’s strengths which are the unique characters and realistic dialogue inside the barbershop.

At their best, the scenes inside Calvin’s Barbershop remind one of a well-written stage play with one central scene. The trouble is that just when the characters are finding their stride in the shop, the directors cut to the outside stories. Barbershop stars O’Shea Jackson, better known as Ice Cube as Calvin Palmer, Jr., a young man who has inherited his father’s barbershop in an African American neighborhood in Chicago. Palmer has dreams of starting a recording studio and is being tempted by offers by a local loan shark to sell the shop. Calvin’s Barbershop is more than just a place to get a trim and a shave. It is also the neighborhood meeting place for a colorful conglomerate of mostly male characters. It is only after Calvin Jr. gives in to the temptation to sell the shop that he realizes how much the place means to his friends and family.

The best thing about Barbershop is that it refuses—for the most part—to give into stereotype. All of the characters have their quirks and differences but are complex enough to defy “role-playing.” Cedric “The Entertainer” Kyles plays Eddie, the older barber who dispenses wit and wisdom and is more than willing to start an argument by “dissing” such African American icons as Rosa Parks, Jesse Jackson and Martin Luther King, Jr. Sean Patrick Thomas plays Jimmy Johnson, the local pseudo-intellectual who doesn’t understand why some of his fellow barbers are content with their occupation. The terrific Michael Ealy plays Ricky Nash, a former teen felon trying to distance himself from his past as well as some of his criminal cousins. Eve Jeffers (known professionally as just “Eve”) plays Terri Jones, the sole female hair stylist who may or may not return to her cheating boyfriend.

The heart and soul of Barbershop is in the relationships between all the characters. It is too bad that those relationships are not explored further. When West African immigrant Dinka (Leonard Earl Howze) expresses his hidden love for Terri, it is a story line that should have been enhanced. Another aspect of the movie that could have been beefed up is the actual barber action inside a shop that specializes in African American hairstyles. The one scene near the end of the movie of Jimmy having his hair cut by the lone white stylist in the shop is well shot and truly fascinating for people not familiar with the techniques. More of that action and less of the ATM nonsense would have made Barbershop infinitely more satisfying.

Barbershop took the box office lead in its opening weekend, raking in $21 million in its first three days. September 2002