| Barbershop | |
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Theatrical poster |
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| Directed by | Tim Story |
| Produced by | George Tillman, Jr. Robert Teitel |
| Written by | Mark Brown Don D. Scott Marshall Todd |
| Starring | Ice Cube Anthony Anderson Sean Patrick Thomas Eve Michael Ealy Troy Garity Leonard Earl Howze Keith David Lahmard Tate DeRay Davis and Cedric the Entertainer |
| Music by | Terence Blanchard |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Release date(s) | September 13, 2002 |
| Running time | 102 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $12 million |
| Box office | $77,063,924[1] |
Barbershop is a 2002 American comedy film directed by Tim Story, produced by State Street Pictures and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on September 13, 2002. Starring Ice Cube, Cedric the Entertainer, and Anthony Anderson, the movie revolves around social life in a barbershop on the South Side of Chicago. Barbershop also proved to be a star-making vehicle for acting newcomers Eve and Michael Ealy.
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On a cold winter Saturday in Chicago in year 1998, Calvin Palmer, Jr. (Ice Cube) decides he's had enough of trying to keep open the barbershop his father handed down to him. He can't borrow enough money to keep the place open, it's not bringing in enough revenue, and he's more interested in coming up with get-rich-quick schemes to bring in easy money. Without telling his employees or the customers, Calvin sells his barbershop to a greedy loan shark named Lester Wallace (Keith David), who lies about keeping the place the same and suddenly makes plans to turn the place into a strip club.
Prior to this, two wannabe thugs, JD (Anthony Anderson) and his best friend Billy (Lahmard Tate), stole an ATM from a convenience store and they spend all day trying to pry it open. After spending a day at work and realizing just how vital the barbershop is to the surrounding community, Calvin rethinks his decision and tries to get his shop back...only to find out Wallace wants double the $20,000 he paid Calvin to give the shop back, and before 7 P.M. Now Calvin has only a scant few hours to try to raise enough money to save the shop. After he admits to the employees that he sold the barber shop and that it would be closing at the end of the day, Chicago police come in and arrests one of the barbers named Ricky (Michael Ealy). Ricky was arrested after being accused of driving his pickup truck into a nearby market to steal the ATM, but it is revealed that the ATM thief, JD, is Ricky's cousin and he was the one who committed the crime after borrowing Ricky's truck. That was Ricky's third strike, and he could be sentenced to life in prison. Calvin uses the $20,000 from Lester to bail Ricky out of jail. Once Calvin picks Ricky up from the jail, Ricky is angry at his cousin for betraying him and wants to kill him.
Calvin tries to calm him down, but Ricky doesn't show any sign of calming down. Calvin gives Ricky a gun he found that fell out of Ricky's locker at the shop, and is disappointed that Ricky is going to end up right back in jail. Ricky tells Calvin to pull the car over, and he does. Ricky gets out and decides to throw the gun off the bridge they're on and into the water before getting back into the car, proving that he doesn't want to get in any more trouble with the law. Then they both go to see Lester; Lester, as well as JD and Billy (who were still trying to pry it open) are confronted by Calvin and Ricky. Calvin and Ricky demands Lester to give Calvin his barbershop back. Lester is angered and orders his bodyguard Monk to pull out his gun. The police arrive just in time to save Calvin and Ricky. JD and Billy are arrested. Calvin and Ricky see the ATM, and get a $50,000 reward for returning it to police. They get the money, and the barbershop reopens with even better business than before. In the meantime, Calvin's wife, Jennifer (Jazsmin Lewis), has given birth to a baby boy.
Produced on a $12 million budget, Barbershop, with a story by Mark Brown and a screenplay by Brown, Marshall Todd, and Don D. Scott, was filmed in Chicago during the winter of 2001. The filmmakers used a storefront in the South Chicago community area (79th Street and Exchange Avenue) that was once a laundromat to build the set for Calvin's barbershop, and the set was duplicated on a soundstage. Similar to what he achieved with his 1997 film Soul Food, producer George Tillman, Jr. wanted to portray African Americans in a more positive and three-dimensional light than many other Hollywood films had in the past. This film also features three original songs by R&B singer/songwriter Sherod Lindsey.
In 2004, MGM released the sequel, Barbershop 2: Back in Business. All of the original cast returned, but director Tim Story did not. This film was directed by Kevin Rodney Sullivan. In the same year, Billie Woodruff directed a spin-off film entitled Beauty Shop, with Queen Latifah as the lead (Latifah's character made her debut in Barbershop 2). Beauty Shop, was pushed back from a late summer 2004 release, finally reached theaters in February 2005.
During the fall of 2005, State Street and Ice Cube debuted Barbershop: The Series on the Showtime cable network, with Omar Gooding taking over Ice Cube's role of Calvin. The character "Dinka" is renamed "Yinka" on Barbershop: The Series, as "Dinka" is not a typical Nigerian name (although a certain tribe in the Nigerian middle belt bear the name "Dimka"). In addition, Isaac's last name is changed from "Rosenberg" to "Brice", and the character Ricky has been replaced by a more hardened ex-con, Romadal.
A soundtrack containing hip hop and R&B music was released on August 27, 2002 by Interscope Records. It peaked at #29 on the Billboard 200 and #9 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums.
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