I'm one of the few people around who still has respect for the "critic". Once in a while I'll go see a movie strickly because a critic I like recommended it. And when I do this, my results are mixed. "Barbershop" was a movie that just didn't appeal to my taste. But, Roger Ebert and Michael Wilmington (He writes for the Chicago Tribune) both recommended this movie. But, I still didn't want to see it, well, I've just came back from seeing it since I was dragged by my friends, who insisted the movie will turn out to be good. We all hated it! "Barbershop"'s problem lies with it's script. It's first of all, boring, secondly it's not well paced, thirdly, it has a few loop holes. The movie is filled with cliches that I'm surprised that the black community has gotten behind this movie. "Barbershop" doesn't do anything that Spike Lee hasn't done, and may I add much better. The movie reminded me at moments of Lee's "Do the Right Thing". Not story wise, but, the "feel" of the movie made me think of it at certain moments. The way the community is shown. The scenes showing everyone at the barbershop itself are kind of boring and to me are only occassionally amusing. The sub-plot of the movie which involves a stolen ATM machine is one of the stupidest things I've ever seen. It doesn't help take this story anywhere. I guess these were suppose to be the moments seen as comic relief, but, they just didn't work. The sub-plot takes the movie off track. It just doesn't belong in this movie. The acting is somewhat enjoyable, but, I never came to like any of the characters really. None of them seemed real enough for me to give them my emotion. Like I said before they all seemed to be cliches. There's the black man who has an education and is seen as a "sell out" there's the white guy who thinks he's "black" and so on. These characters aren't very interesting when put together. The directing by Tim Story is decent. And if given better material may become a good director. He gave the film some flavor but not enough to fully entertain me. The screenplay has it faults and I've went over all of them. "Barbershop" is a movie I guess could of been better. What could of made it better? I don't know. As the movie stands the way it is, it's not a total dud, but, it's not a winner either. ** out of ****
Review of Barbershop
