SnoopyStyle It's a day in the life of a barbershop on the south side of Chicago. Calvin Palmer, Jr. (Ice Cube) is struggling to find the money to keep open the shop inherited from his father. He sells the shop to greedy Lester Wallace (Keith David) who tricks him turning it into a strip club. Later he changes his mind. JD (Anthony Anderson) uses his cousin Ricky Nash (Michael Ealy)'s truck to steal the ATM across the street. Ricky Nash (Michael Ealy) is one of the barbers with 2 strikes. Terri Jones (Eve) is angry after finding her boyfriend with another woman. The shop is filled with crazy characters both barbers and customers. Eddie (Cedric the Entertainer) is an old-timer with no customers. Jimmy James is very particular about things. Isaac Rosenberg is the only white barber and Dinka is secretly in love with Terri.This is a fun group of characters. There are some great comedians and a actors at work. There are some fun conversations and good comedy. Cedric the Entertainer has some great lines and gives the movie its heart. F Jesse Jackson! Anthony Anderson is quite funny in his side of the movie. He has many hilarious scenes and one with Lahmard Tate about $5. This is a terrific comedy with heart.

MartinHafer "Barbershop" reminds me of a film made long ago--"Carwash". The big difference is that "Barbershop" doesn't have the same very broad humor and, at times, has some interesting philosophical statements to make...along with the humor.The film is about a barbershop in Chicago's South Side. If you aren't familiar with the area, it's a mostly Black neighborhood and this is a chance for a much wider audience to see this part of town. Few films are usually set here--as it lacks the glamor of places like L.A. and New York. So, it's nice to see it featured here.The plot is pretty thin and it's mostly there to provide a backdrop for all the excellent characters in the film. This is not a complaint--it's just the style of the movie. Ice Cube runs the shop that was given to him after his father's death. It's been in the family for many years, but he just can't make a go of it. Yet, despite not making much money, it is a very important place in the neighborhood--a gathering place for folks to talk and renew friendships. When, out of desperation, he decides to sell the place, he doesn't know what to tell his customers...let alone his many employees.The very large ensemble cast is quite good. They represent many different types within the community, such as the young man aspiring to get a college degree and leave, the white guy who seems to want to be black, the elder statesman among the barbers (Cederic the Entertainer), a sweet African man, and many others. At first, I found most of them to be rather one-dimensional, but over time they all revealed a greater depth than I thought possible in the movie--and I grew to like them and care for them. My favorite of them was Cederic, as he had so many funny, and occasionally insightful, lines. Interestingly, Cederic's tirade about Rosa Parks was actually correct in that quite a few others had done what she did on the bus. In 1854, Elizabeth Jennings Graham refused to give up her seat on a New York street-car and several others followed over the next century. But, fortunately, he was not the only one I really liked in the film--each had a chance to shine. Michael Ealy was also a standout--an excellent actor and and excellent character.So is this film for everyone? Well, I wouldn't recommend it for kids or my mother-in-law, as the language is earthy (but real). But aside from this, it's an excellent film--whether you are black, white or green! As for me, I'm a middle-aged white guy, and although I am not in the target demographic category by any stretch, I really had a nice time watching the film. Good acting, great characters and exceptional writing make this a good bet. I just can't see why its current rating on IMDb is so low...it should be higher.

ponyfan I've read more than one review saying that this was mainly a movie for black people, mainly because of cultural in jokes. There were plenty of references to and clever banter about quite a few issues that a lot of people would expect in a movie featuring mostly "black" people (including Ice Cube), though I often have trouble with US accents, I'm not a massive fan of US rap in general and my skin's pretty pasty, and it seemed pretty straight forward to me... The movie should appeal to anyone that likes an intelligent comedy that doesn't take itself too seriously and has some heart. Anthony Anderson cracked me up and so did Cedric. First and foremost the movie is about people and the value of communities compared to the cold world ruled by the $. Most of the characters were "real" and the shonky ones were made believable- great cast and fluent acting. A movie for the sort of people that have wondered how hard it would be to knock off an ATM :)

Mikelito 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.