★ ★
After the success of the 2002 comedy Barbershop, sequel Barbershop 2 widened its scope by focusing on the effects of gentrification on local businesses. In Barbershop: The Next Cut, screenwriters Kenya Barris (creator of the television series Black-ish) and Tracy Oliver go even further by tackling the issue of urban violence in a high-crime area of Chicago. Calvin (Ice Cube), the stoic Rashad (Common) and the wise-cracking, cantankerous Eddie (Cedric the Entertainer) run the barbershop in question, which now also hosts a female hair salon helmed by new character Angie (Regina Hall). The barbershop employees decide to do their part to halt the local violence (which is bad for business, as politicians are discussing gating off 20 blocks surrounding the area) by using Calvin’s good standing with several gang leaders to organize a cease-fire, and by offering free haircuts in order to promote their message of peace, friendship, and lighthearted ribbing.
At the same time, Calvin and Rashad attempt to steer their respective sons, Jalen (Michael Rainey Jr.) and Kenny (Diallo Thompson), away from the gang life, while the attractive hairdresser Draya (Nicki Minaj) causes a rift between Rashad and his wife Terri (Eve). But the movie’s real focus is on the conversations inside the shop, in which the staff and customers alike share their humorous takes on issues such as race, monogamy, and modern vocabulary. The dialogue is driven by the shop’s owners, as well as employees like the socially conscious Bree (Margot Bingham), the weirdly awkward Jerrod (Lamorne Morris), motormouthed jack-of-all-trades One-Stop (J.B. Smoove), hipster Raja (Utkarsh Ambudkar), and the goofy, omnipresent Dante (Deon Cole).
Although this film series made its bones on comedic bon mots and rapid-fire retorts, Barbershop: The Next Cut also gets a lot of mileage out of the drama of family matters. Ice Cube provides a solid demonstration here of why he’s an acting veteran of more than two decades, and his scenes with his wife Jennifer (Jazsmin Lewis) are affecting. A good deal of the laughs come from humorous asides from the duo of Morris and Ambudkar, as well as the occasional one-liner or burn from Cedric and Cole. The Barbershop series is beloved by many because of its charisma and heart, and the chatter and camaraderie on display offers another helping of that winning formula.
The choice to try to capture the zeitgeist by taking on gang violence is a strong one, as is the decision to have the staff nobly attempt to do their part without trying to solve all of the city’s problems (a resolution which would have come across as treacly at best). However, several aspects of the film still feel tone-deaf. One of those issues is overacting, which nearly every member of the cast falls victim to at some point. Malcolm D. Lee, the third director to helm an entry in this series in as many movies, has apparently never seen an exaggerated reaction shot he doesn’t like. We get constant zoom-ins onto characters’ scrunched-up faces after controversial statements or cryptic line readings, and not only does it quickly become groan-worthy, it undermines any shred of subtext. And for a film that’s so progressive in other ways, it feels lazy and small-minded that Barbershop: The Next Cut falls back on jokes about implying that someone is gay.
This sequel does contain a few of the sort of one-liners that made its predecessors so popular, and the widespread appeal of performers like Minaj and Cube will probably sell plenty of tickets. But far more jokes seem to miss than hit, and appearances by Eve, Smoove, and Anthony Anderson are wasted by low-rate plot developments that don’t go anywhere. Like a mediocre haircut, Barbershop: The Next Cut ultimately falls flat.