Barbershop, Bad Boys II and Dark Blue

By EWAN McDONALD

Barbershop: (Herald rating: * * *)

Bad Boys II: (Herald rating: * *)

Dark Blue: (Herald rating: * *)


"Straight to video" is film-insider slang for a turkey, don't waste your money or your Saturday night. Fact is, that's a little off the mark. America's minority film-makers long ago determined that they weren't going to get an even break from the Hollywood establishment and concentrated on marketing their productions through the home theatre market, DVD and video, where they could communicate more directly with their audience. And where, they realised, their audience felt more comfortable watching the movies, too.

The first of these three movies did score at the box office, however. Thanks largely to a controversial rap about icons of the civil rights movement including Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and Rodney King (of whom more later), and the ruckus it stirred up among African-American leaders, Barbershop debuted top of the box-office charts and took in US$75 million in the US alone.

Calvin (Ice Cube, pictured) has inherited his late father's barber shop on the south side of Chicago. It's a drop-in centre; locals gossip, read magazines, play dominoes while Calvin and his team chit-chat and clip.

Meet the team: Eddie the old-timer (Cedric the Entertainer), Jimmy the college student (Sean Patrick Thomas), Ricky the ex-con (Michael Ealy), Terri the hard-nut (rap star Eve), Dinka the shy Nigerian immigrant (Leonard Earl Howze) and Isaac the token white (Troy Garity).

With bills to pay and a baby on the way, and dreaming of a recording studio, Calvin sells the shop to Lester the loan shark (Keith David). A condition of the deal is that Lester will keep the word "barber shop" above the door, which he will: he plans to turn it into a gentleman's club called Barbershop.

Calvin immediately regrets his move and begs Lester to sell him back the shop. Lester will, for double the price, and gives him one day to raise $40,000, keep his team in work and save the 'hood's social club.

Needless sex and crime subplots will be inserted, but the film is simply a full-on, dramatised snapshot of a day in the life of an urban community, perhaps an episode of Oprah with half a dozen hosts, scattershot conversations of the sort that happen around your office coffee machine — or barber shop.


n Will Smith and Martin Lawrence return as an odd couple of Miami drug detectives in Bad Boys II, eight years after the original. It's formula Jerry Bruckheimer: cars, bullets, boats, explosions, blood and bodies for almost 21/2 hours.

Jerry probably bought the story in a sale at Plots'R'Us. There's a nasty drug dealer (Jordi Molla) and a Russian mob boss (Peter Stormare), who are about to import a massive shipment of ecstasy to Miami. The Tactical Narcotics Team's Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) and Mike Lowery (Will Smith) are on the case.

As in episode one, Marcus is emotionally unstable, undergoing anger management therapy, while Mike, privileged and suave, breezes through life.

There is something on the sidelines involving Marcus' younger sister, Sydney (Gab-rielle Union), who has a business relationship with the drug ring and an altogether different relationship with Mike.


n And now we return to Rodney King for Dark Blue. Some historical notes: four white LAPD cops were captured on video beating the bejesus out of a black suspect named Rodney King.

When a jury acquitted the police in April 1992 Black LA rebelled in a week of roiling race riots and looting. Exposed as racist and corrupt, the force had to withdraw from policing several suburbs of the city.

Dark Blue takes place in the days before and after the verdict was announced. From a story by James Ellroy (L. A. Confidential), it's the familiar "grizzled old cop who has to bend the rules, tutoring wide-eyed young cop, both pushed along by corrupt desk jockey" routine. Cop A, Perry, is Kurt Russell; Cop B, Keough, is Scott Speedman; Cop C, Jack Van Meter, is Brendan Gleeson.

When Van Meter's narks murder four people during a robbery, he orders Perry and Keough to frame and kill a couple of sex criminals. So, enter Cop D, the good cop, Deputy Chief Arthur Holland (Ving Rhames), who wants to nail Van Meter for the good name of the force.

Makes you glad to be a citizen of New Zealand and know that sort of corruption couldn't happen among our boys in dark blue. And of course, if it did, it couldn't be covered up for years, could it?

Barbershop DVD features: movie (102 min); commentary by director, producers, writer; uncut version; deleted scenes with director commentary; Making Of ... ; out-takes; photo gallery.

Bad Boys II DVD features: movie (147min); deleted scenes; production diaries; stunts and visual effects feature; Jay-Z music video, La-la-la; sequence breakdowns.

Dark Blue DVD features: movie (118min); commentary by director Ron Shelton; three features; photo gallery.


DVD, video rental February 11