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A DVD Review of...
  
Images (C) MGM, 2002 |
Genre: Comedy
Cast: Ice Cube, Eve, Anthony Anderson, Sean Patrick Thomas, Cedric the Entertainer
Synopsis: A day in the life of a barbershop on the south side of Chicago. Calvin (Cube), who inherited the struggling business from his deceased father, views the shop as nothing but a burden and waste of his time. After selling the shop to a local loan shark, Calvin slowly begins to see his father's vision and legacy and struggles with the notion that he just sold it out. Calvin's barbershop is filled with an eclectic and hilarious cast of characters that share their stories, jokes, trials and tribulations. In the shop we find Eddie (the Entertainer), an old barber with strong opinions and no customers. Jimmy (Thomas) is a highly educated barber with a superiority complex who can't stand Isaac (Garity), the new, white barber who just wants a shot at cutting some hair. Ricky is an ex-con with two strikes against him and is desperately trying to stay straight. Terri (Eve) is a hard-edged woman who can't seem to leave her two-timing boyfriend. And lastly there's Dinka, a fellow barber who is madly in love with Terri but doesn't get the time of day..
Film Review: An almost one-set piece with light humour and themes of family, you could easily mistake the new Ice Cube comedy for a network retro sitcom without the laugh track. Many of the storylines have been done all before from a loan shark trying to move in on the neighbourhood business, to a young guy trying to overcome issues that his dead father left behind. Yet in some ways its a blessing as it takes a genre that usually finds a hard time crossing over into more mainstream appeal than anything many of these great comic actors have done on the big screen in recent years.
The cast is superb across the board with Cube down playing it as the 'master of ceremonies' style owner of the store,
Eve makes an impressive debut as the sole sassy female employee, and Anthony Anderson does his best to make his totally irrelevant 'B Story' about a stolen ATM into something a little more than almost slapstick filler. The supporting characters are like stereotypes right out of TV land - Cedric the Entertainer as the tactless old-timer, Sean Patrick Thomas as an arrogant college kid, Troy Garrity as the requisite white guy with black attitude, Leonard Earl Howze as a guy who barely speaks English, and customer regulars who pop in and out. None of them falter though as each play out their subplots and the writers have already established an interesting social structure between the characters which we're plonked into the middle of.
You could call it an "African-American 'Cheers' for the big screen" but the laughs are less canned, the sentiment is more appealing, and the cast is more street wise and engaging. Despite there being next to no script, this character drama/comedy is filled with almost "old school" style filmmaking which in many ways is why it works. There's times such as when the film slows down and Cedric's character lectures everyone else about old time values that you'd expect to be corny but when played out are actually quite touching. Its perfectly safe, satisfying and broad entertainment which will have appeal to all ages. - Garth Franklin
"Barbershop: Special Edition"
DVD Details In Brief (Region 1)
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 102mins
Versions: 16:9 Enhanced Widescreen, 4:3 Letterboxed
Aspect Ratio: 1.85: 1
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Sub-Titles: English, Spanish, Portugese, French
Audio: Commentary Track by Director Tim Story, Writer Don D. Scott, and Producers Robert Teitel and George Tillman, Jr.
Documentaries: "The Hair Club" Four-Part Documentary
Clips: Deleted Scenes, Outtakes, Music Video, Trailer
Other: Still Gallery, Interactive Game
Region 1 vs. Region 4: No Region 4 Available. |
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DVD Review: After big success at the box-office in the US, MGM has given this single disc release a swell treatment with a superb transfer and a good amount of interesting extras presented in high quality footage. The video is excellent with a high level of detail, very good use of colour and contrast and practically no sign of grain, whilst the audio has crisp and clear dialogue which is very important as the surround never really gets a big workout here. Director Tim Story, Producers Robert Teitel and George Tillman Jr, and Screenwriter Don D. Scott lend their voices to a rather fun commentary track. A lot of the scenes here look the same as each other due to the usage of the same sets, but these guys are never lost and its obvious they love the material without taking it too seriously - the best kind of filmmakers.
"The Hair Club" consists of four featurettes adding up to about 38 minutes of footage, half of which is made up in 'The Final Cut' - a standard E! style making of but thankfully no voiceover whilst the cast helps by adding some good banter (mostly thanks to Anthony Anderson) mixed in with the more serious stories about how the film got made and it sounds like a
hell of a fun shoot with all the cast & crew hanging out regularly. The other three are less than half as long each and
gives us a tour of the sets, the costumes and colour scheme of the film, and best of all is a visit to 'Platinum Cuts' in
California with the various barbers there talking about hairstyles such as the European Shag, the Gumby and the Curl. Hidden on the first page is a two-minute piece where the same barbers talk about conversational topics in salons.
"Deleted Scenes" sadly don't have much to them at all except a funny encounter in a flower shop, Cube woeing about
money, and Anderson and cohort fighting with fire which has made its way onto his leg. There's around five minutes of "Outtakes" which are quite funny, mostly thanks to Anthony Anderson's creative line replacements of Cedric's viagra stories and budget planning. The still gallery contains standard cast and publicity stills, Fabulous's woeful "Trade It All" music video with severe edge enhancement is on here, as is the film's trailer, an interactive trivia game, and previews for other "MGM's Greatest" discs though when the only promos are "Rollerball" and "What's the Worst That Could Happen" one has to wonder how they fit in that category. A solid disc for a very good movie. - Garth Franklin
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