Beauty Shop film review

certificate_12A

BEAUTY SHOP

If hanging out in a hairdressers listening to a colourful bunch of stylists gossiping about sex and each other is your idea of a good time, then Beauty Shop is for you. The follow-up to Barbershop and its sequel, Beauty Shop adopts the same premise, the only thing that's changed is the estrogen level. Packed with a bawdy and bitchy cast of women, headed by the matriarchal Gina Morris (Queen Latifah), Beauty Shop is like a cheap haircut: it looks okay from a distance, but doesn't fare so well under close scrutiny.

The film's greatest asset is its impressive cast that includes three Oscar nominees in Latifah, Alfre Woodard and Djimon Honsou alongside the respected talents of Kevin Bacon and Andie MacDowell. Their ability in making the most of their roles elevates Beauty Shop above the mediocrity of its writing and direction.

Gina Morris, who first showed up in Barbershop 2: Back In Business, is now working for the narcissistic flamboyant Jorge, a stern salon owner with a heavy Austrian accent, played with camp excess by Kevin Bacon. When his rigid methods become overbearing, Gina leaves and pursues her lifelong dream of starting her own beauty shop. After finding a run down store in a rough area of Atlanta, she assembles a group of stylists, including the poetic Ms Josephine (Woodard), the brassy Ida (Sherri Sheperd), Chanel (Golden Brooks) and the shop's one white employee, the plucky southern lass Lynn (Alicia Silverstone).

The clientele includes locals, bling bling trophy wives and pampered white princesses who have followed Gina from Jorge's. Adding some Y chromosomes to the mix are the hunky piano playing electrician Joe (Djimon Honsou), who becomes a romantic attraction for single mom Gina and a musical mentor for her gifted daughter Vanessa, and Willie (Little JJ), a fast-talking, wise-cracking booty -obsessed youngster who has his video camera permanently trained on the backsides of passing women.

The injection of white women into the predominantly black world of the shop inevitably leads to plenty of racial humour. There's neurotic Terri (Andie Macdowell) making awkward Janet Jackson references, ultra white Lynn shakin' her rear on the dancefloor and digs about the stuck-up Joanne's (Mena Suvari) implants. Sophisticated, insightful comedy it isn't, but more the female equivalent of barroom banter.