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Trust Weighted
Really Great
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66Trust Points
Wick's Review
Summary - Really Great 4.5 click to collapse contents
Barbershop: The Next Cut should be a Best Picture contender but won’t be. Not because it’s black, because it’s a comedy. Comedies get no respect from the Academy. Can I get a witness? Somebody?
While LOL funny, Barbershop 3 is not your ordinary comedy. Instead, it bridges several paradoxes.
- Intellectually honest, while being extremely arch
- Serious as a Saturday-night-special, while being piss-your-pants hilarious
- Occasionally sappy, while always keeping it real
Black lives matter, so black-on-black violence is naturally the central concern of the dozen or so 2016 African-Americans in Barbershop 2016. Police violence doesn’t enter the picture, not because it never happens, but because black-on-black violence happens so damn much more. That’s honesty. That’s #Truth.
Common speaks his Sharpton shit, but the reality around him – even in this arch comedy – belies his lament. Police violence isn’t what’s killing kids in Chicago. Community crime is, same as everywhere.
Speaking of truth, it’s natural that an intact nuclear family – complete with a father and mother, but most especially a father – would seek to pursue the best interests of their family. That’s entirely true, sane and good. The problem is that there are too few fathers in the hood, an epidemic condition the movie notes.
Director Malcolm D. Lee deserves award consideration, as does Kenya Barris & Tracy Oliver’s screenplay.
Their joint is star-fired, mostly by Cedric the Entertainer & Nicki Minaj, but also Ice Cube, Anthony Anderson, Eve, J.B. Smoove & Common. Cedric & le Minaj slay comedically and sexually, respectively.
Barbershop 2016 captures the zeitgeist of urban America better than anything any of the 2016 presidential contenders are peddling. The Academy may not consider that Best Picture material, but I certainly do.