Rating: NN
BARBERSHOP (Tim Story) Rating: NN
Barbershop styles itself a ghetto comedy, but this style was played out pre-afro. Ice Cube stars as a dreamer stuck running his dead father’s cut palace on Chicago’s south side. But the story’s a thin peg to hang a rack of old vaudeville gags and black blustery cross-talk on. Barbershop is the brainchild of writer Mark Brown (How To Be A Player, Two Can Play That Game) and carries his unambitious stamp. Some jokes are funny, and the cast, which includes Eve and Cedric the Entertainer, livens up the material, but the whole thing is swamped in warmed-over, feel-good clichés about ghetto life. 102 minutes.
