VIBE Online Film Pick - Barbershop

Filmed on location in Chi-town, the film has the scenery, barbershop vibe and dialogue down. But with so many different actors squeezed into 100 minutes of screen time, the characters aren't quite as well-developed. Everyone's just shy of a stereotype. The Better than Thou College Student. The misunderstood token white guy. The rehabilitated ex-con. Eve, who has more lines than she did in the summer blockbuster XXX, plays the lone female employee Terry, a "pit bull in a skirt" who spends the entire day in a bad mood. She does well considering the script doesn't give her much to work with. That's not to say Barbershop doesn't have it's moments. It does with most of them coming courtesy of Cedric the Entertainer. Cedric's gray-haired Eddie, who's seen it all and is not afraid to set the record straight, is reminiscent of the old-school barbershop cats Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall played in Coming to America. The other highlights is the shenanigans of Anthony Anderson (Two Can Play That Game) and Lahmard Tate (looking just like his brother Larenz), who play thieves who steal an ATM and then can't get it open. It echo's an episode of America's Dumbest Criminals. When you've acted in ghetto classics like Friday and Boyz N the Hood, you set a pretty high bar for yourself. Unfortunately, Cube's latest falls flat. Barbershop is like cotton candy. You'll enjoy it while you're eating it, but you'll forget it as soon as it's gone.