'BARBERSHOP' FINDS RIGHT STYLE.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

'SHAMPOO'S'' been taken, so this amiable workplace comedy in the ``Car Wash'' mode simply goes by the title of ``Barbershop.''

Frothy but not fluff, the piece gives us a wide range of characters, some portrayed more broadly than others, none of them very deep. But they're all vivid in distinctive ways, and as they say, the stuff that comes out of their mouths ...

While there are certainly smarter slices of African-American life to be found on the screen, ``Barbershop'' is several fades above the average run of street burlesque and middle-class family dramedy, both of which it has elements of. What's new and fresh about the movie is its topical humor, much of it delivered by an age-makeuped Cedric the Entertainer, that makes affectionate but boisterous fun of certain heroes of the civil rights movement in a way that humanizes individuals who were long ago elevated into sacred symbols. ``Barbershop'' is about the place in the community where everybody can be themselves by laughing at themselves and others, and there are moments when the picture inflates this feeling with a jovial universality.

Cedric plays Eddie, the old-timer at Calvin's Barbershop on the South Side of Chicago. He doesn't cut heads much anymore, but he's there every day to provide the verbal and attitudinal links to the place's past glory, when Calvin's late father ran things and understood his establishment's larger purpose (``It was our country club,'' Eddie wistfully and accurately recalls).

The current owner, played by a nicely understated Ice Cube, would rather be doing something else. He's built a not-quite-ready-for-rhyme-time recording studio in the basement of the modest home he shares with his loving-but-skeptical pregnant wife Jennifer (Jazsmin Lewis) and dreams of both a music career and a home as nice as Oprah's guest house. Not her mansion, mind you; the guest house will do just fine.

Anyway, Calvin sees the barbershop as a burdensome commitment. In the course of a day and a night, he offloads the money-losing enterprise to a local loan shark who wants to turn it into a lap-dance club, then tries to get out of the deal when he realizes how much the local institution is really worth.

Helping Calvin discover the home truth is a lineup of irrepressible types who, between snips, express opinions about life, love and each other - often simultaneously, and at the tops of their lungs.

Besides Eddie, these include: Jimmy James (Sean Patrick Thomas), a know-it-all college boy who's wrong about a lot of things; Teri Jones (Eve), the lone female haircutter who can more than hold her own with the guys behind the chairs but gets all weak and stupid around her no-good lover; Dinka (Leonard Earl Howze), a cheerful African immigrant who's all weak and stupid for Teri but convinced he's not in her league; Ricky Nash (Michael Ealy), a troubled ex-con whose determination to stay on the straight-and-narrow is sorely tested as the day wears on; and Isaac Rosenberg (Troy Garity), the white guy whose mortifying lack of willing clients does nothing to dent his selmage as the blackest brotha in the shop.

For a little outside entertainment, there are the dopey antics of two woebegone bandits (Anthony Anderson and Lahmard Tate) and their frustrating attempts to break into a stolen ATM machine. The real action, though, is all on the haircutting floor. Director Tim Story displays a terrific knack for capturing the right action in an enclosed set crammed with a dozen hot dogs all trying to get attention. He also keeps the film's serious and silly elements in equilibrium, a deceptively tough but vital key to keeping an audience pleased and engaged.

Which is all that ``Barbershop'' is out to do. But what more does any customer want when they go in for a haircut?

BARBERSHOP - Three stars

(PG-13: language, drug use, mild violence)

Starring: Ice Cube, Cedric the Entertainer, Anthony Anderson, Sean Patrick Thomas, Eve, Troy Garity, Michael Ealy, Leonard Earl Howze, Keith David, Lahmard Tate, Jaszmin Lewis.

Director: Tim Story.

Running time: 1 hr. 42 min.

Playing: Citywide.

In a nutshell: Chattery ensemble comedy is superficial but fun slice of Chicago African-American life.