After selling the barbershop that he inherits from his father, Calvin, struggles against selling the shop, as he regrets selling it, as he sees his father's memories and former life there, where people share their life story with each others, so he finds out its benefits and importance more than before, as he was seeing that shop useless and does not have any benefit.
Perhaps because it promotes traditional values - respect women, crime doesn't pay, family comes first - the film shines in those rare scenes when it plays with received wisdom.
Rapper-turned-actor Ice Cube ably provides the emotional core in this story of a neighborhood barbershop and its assortment of colorful inhabitants, which is a cut above standard hip-hop cinematic fare.
Some of the verbal jousts are hot, and a Laurel and Hardy routine involving a stolen ATM is fitfully hilarious, but this reminds me of a pilot for a cable sitcom.
