Just as the men and women at Calvin’s Barbershop are older and have more responsibilities, so too is Barbershop: The Next Cut more mature than its cinematic predecessors.
Director Malcolm D. Lee and his screenwriters raise the stakes of Barbershop and its 2004 sequel by taking Chicago’s ongoing gang violence seriously, making it the focus of the plot.
But since the film is a comedy first, the one-liners serve as a welcome form of levity. This is a delicate balancing act — one which the large acting ensemble pulls off, with effortless chemistry.
In the 2002 original, the workers saw Calvin’s as a space where men could let their hair down — pun intended — and speak their minds freely. Now that Calvin (Ice Cube) has joined forces with Angie (Regina Hall) and her beauty shop, Calvin’s is neutral territory in the ongoing battle of the sexes.
This neutrality takes on a larger purpose since gangbangers also visit the shop. After discussing how politicians ignore the South Side, Calvin and Angie organize the community around the shop, persuading rival gangs to participate in a 48-hour cease-fire. Everyone’s enthusiastic about the idea, but Calvin’s son Jalen (Michael Rainey Jr.) is about to be initiated into one of the gangs.
The Barbershop films have always had multiple subplots, yet the films are more about the characters holding court. Eddie (Cedric the Entertainer) rambles about how the neighborhood used to be, while Raja (Utkarsh Ambudkar) tries to argue that Obama’s presidency means that African-Americans now face less institutional racism than before. The filmmaker treats all viewpoints with respect; part of the fun is seeing whom we agree with more than others.
Although this sounds like pretty serious stuff, everyone at Calvin’s is so relaxed — and naturally funny — using jokes, not just argument, to make their points. Some subplots exist primarily for comedy: Rashad (Common) must resist advances from Draya (Nicki Minaj) — the screenplay includes several asides about her figure — while Rashad’s wife Terri (Eve) grows jealous. Lee avoids formula enough that the smaller stories have rewarding payoffs. And when tensions are at their peak, he throws in a dance sequence, just to remind us that everyone still cares for one another.
Barbershop: The Next Cut is a gentler alternative to Chi-Raq, Spike Lee’s bracing satire about Chicago street violence. (Spike Lee and Malcolm D. Lee are cousins). If Chi-Raq aimed to shock us out of complacency, The Next Cut creates a more welcoming groove, encouraging greater openness to outside perspectives.
The cast is huge, many with larger-than-life personalities, so it’s inevitable that Lee is unable to give them all the attention they deserve. Compared with the settings of most movies, however, this Barbershop remains a place where almost anyone would love to while away a long, easygoing afternoon.