Star-studded African-American comedy set around a day in the life of a barbershop owner who is losing his shop due to money problems. The banter in the 'shop is fun and entertaining but generally racial in nature and so dated, or at least a little tired. I used to love this film, about fifteen years ago, but it doesn't bear repeat viewing now. The Indian and West African characters are rather stereotyped for humour, which doesn't really wash to UK audiences now. Ice Cube plays everything straight but everyone else is comedic, and it seems like everyone had fun filming. Cedric the Entertainer is brilliantly funny, when is he not? and Eve is a nice counterbalance to all the blokes in the shop. Anthony Anderson is the main comedic turn as a bumbling and accident prone crook - before his Law and Order days - but there are lots of other familiar faces such as Sean Patrick Thomas, Michael Ealy, Keith David, Jason George and Deon Cole. A giggle in places but not laugh out loud funny, but it used to be. Perhaps you have to be in the right mood.

Not every movie can be entirely original. But it's annoying to see obvious rip-offs from other movies combined with a lack of talent for story-telling (or in this case scene-telling). Obvious references which are simply taken and copied only with much lesser intelligence are: Coming to America, Big Lebowski, Do The Right Thing, Carwash, etc. For instance the car smashing scene: It isn't even done well, the guy takes forever to notice that his car is being smashed, then he runs out on the street and there isn't a single funny line. The scene is straight out of Big Lebowski (a movie I didn't like and found less original than almost everyone else but at least there was some craft involved in the making of that particular movie). And this happens all the time: people talk and do the most obvious things. No twists, no clever dialogue, just a shallow and flat deliverance. It sometimes even feels as if there was no script at all. People seem to have a general idea of a scene then just went along to see if anything (funny) would happen. It's all good and fine to try to capture alleged everyday life but this requires a skill. The "jokes" throughout the movie have Police Academy quality. i.e. they are primitive, slap-sticky and have been seen a million times. Fat guys are just fat and that is supposedly funny enough. For them to quote and make fun of Rosa Parks, MLK has absolutely no reason or twist or whatever. At one point in the movie guys talk about being entitled to reparation payments like Jews for the Holocaust. It's mystifying what all these touchy subjects that appear out of nowhere in the movie are supposed to be doing for a film that seems to want to be a light-hearted snap-shot of some inner city neighbourhood.It seems someone just wanted to cram every possible subject into a setting without rounding if off in any way thinking you can just loosely tie together scenes and ideas (from others), then mix in a few controversial subjects and voilà: Here's your masterpiece. Well: it didn't work.

I had no particular opinion of Ice Cube when I first saw this film, but afterward, hey, I believe he must be one of the most talented guys out there. In a way, this film succeeds where Robert Townsend's movies tried but failed, being a fine African-American comedy with real heart. The converging plot lines of the ensemble of characters are reminiscent of House Party, but the well-written dialog keeps everything tripping along to its conclusion very smartly.Cedric's loopy old man character is wildly fun to watch, and yes, reminds me of some loopy old men I've met out in the real world. No matter how outspoken and outrageous he is, however, his character drags all of them back to the fundamentals in a very real way. There is, basically, a lot of humanity in these flawed characters.

Relationships vs. Money In Barbershop, having good friends and sticking together is better than money because money can't buy happiness and because friendship lasts forever. Furthermore, Calvin wanting Oprah's guest house for his wife isn't going to make her happy.I've watched Barbershop quite a few times. It's one of my favorite movies and that's why I chose to do my MMR on it. Actually thinking about the meaning of the movie is something I don't normally do after watching a movie, but this time I did.When I said "Calvin wanting Oprah's guest house for his wife isn't going to make her happy," I meant that Calvin thought if he sold the barbershop for enough money and bought his wife a huge house then she would be happy. He was so wrapped up in the thought of money and himself he wasn't thinking about how great the barbershop was and how many generations it had been there. The barbershop had tremendous sentimental value, but money was clouding Calvin's thoughts. Within the barbershop group, there were people who loved and truly cared about each other. All Calvin wanted was more money; he didn't take the time to think how significant the shop was not only to just him, but to others around him also. It took Calvin selling the shop to see the value of relationships and realize that money won't buy happiness and cannot fulfill the things friendships can.No matter how much money you have in your possession, you will never be able to buy yourself happiness. Yeah a nice house, a nice car and any material thing you want might be nice, but you can't accomplish true happiness with money. In the beginning of the movie, Calvin had a picture of Oprah's guest house and he was trying to start all these small businesses thinking that being able to buy a huge house was going to make him and his wife happy. One of my favorite quotes from the movie is when Eddie said to Calvin, "Yo daddy may 'notta had a whole 'lotta money, oh but he was rich, cause he invested in people." This is such a powerful quote because of the meaning it has. Eddie is saying Calvin's dad changed peoples lives by giving them jobs, cutting their hair, and just letting them be in the barbershop. After Calvin sold the barbershop, he thought about it and saw the happiness and relationships in the barbershop. His wife was so disappointed in him and so was everyone else, and he finally realized that his father's barbershop was worth more than twenty grand, what it represented couldn't be purchased for any amount of money. Friendships and relationships do last a lifetime. Eddie was one of the barbers that had held a job there for so many years. Before he worked for Calvin, he worked for Calvin's father. Eddie built numerous relationships around the barbershop along with others who were customers and employees. His best and closest friends he saw every day while at the barbershop. They had conversations about anything and everything. You could go into that barbershop and talk about whatever you wanted. There were so many memories in the barbershop; you probably couldn't even count them. Checker Fred had been there every day for who knows how many years. After Calvin realized that the barbershop was more valuable than he realized before, he was a richer man.This movie helped me realized that money isn't everything, but friendship is. Money is important to a certain extent, but not to the degree where we lose any sort of relationship.