Movie Review:The Barbershop: When violence becomes the order of the day and only a barbershop makes a move to stop it

Does it seem like no one is doing anything about teenage gang and violence? Well, these people are…

This movie is about how a barbershop makes an effort to reduce crime rate in its community. The shop owner, Calvin, a barber, had a son who is age mates with Rashad’s son. A lifelong friend and a co-barber. The two boys become wayward and almost got fully influenced by Yummy (TYGA), a notorious gang leader. Calvin and Rashad find out about this and it causes rivalry and separation. Calvin also complains to Rashad’s about his son being a bad influence to his own son. Angrily conversing with Rashad outside the shop, both fathers orally defend their sons and exchanged words. Unknown to Calvin, His son is the bad influence to Rashad’s son.

Due to the daily shooting on the blocks, the government intend to demolish all the stores by the road of the affected community. This motive will affect the shop owners and they wouldn’t let this happen. Coming together and stopping crime is the only option.

Calvin on his end makes secret moves to buy a shop at a safe location without informing Rashad and his co-workers. This secret is revealed by Rashad who found out while eavesdropping. This leads to distrust and brief conflict. Calvin later explains the reason for his intentions and apologises.

There is also drama and tantrum as Draya (Nicki Minaj) tries to entice and seduce Terry’s husband, Rashad. Coincidentally, Terry finds Rashad and Draya in the store alone in the back. This situation puts Rashad in a tight corner as there was no activity in the back room with Draya but Terry doesn’t believe him. All efforts to gain Terry’s trust back fails until Draya personally pays a visit to Terry to explain what happened and admits trying to woo Rashad. Draya later made a sincere apology as intended.

With the daily shootings and killings happening on the block, a worker at the barber shop, Anthony Clark was murdered. This incident causes the barbers shop to call for a meeting and organise a cease fire. Involving the entire community and having a peace talk with the two leaders of the notorious gangs in the block, they began the cease fire by offering free hair-cuts as long as the cease fire lasted for 42hours. The movement doesn’t only save the blocks from demolition of its stores, but saves lives as only one causality was recorded over the weekend.

The movie ends with resolution, peace and satisfaction as the movement of the cease fire trends on social media and to the ears of President Obama who pays them a visit to commend their effort.

The movie sends out a sound message on violence and killings by gang members and unity on the positive side. This movie however, gives an insight of how things used to be before change surfaced. Featuring popular acts and award winners such as Ice Cube, Regina Hall, Anthony Anderson, TYGA, Anthony Davis, EVE and Nicki Minaj, the 1hour 50 minutes production is based on comedy, love, conflict, violence and drama. With the excellent photography and star characters, the rating at 75% sounds fair.