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With the original from 2002 now part of American folklore, the new Barbershop 2: Back In Business does just what the title says -- it gets down to the business of riling folks and sorting out thorny moral issues.
Most of the original cast is back, led by cool Ice Cube, controversial Cedric The Entertainer, sexy singer Eve and a clutch of other strong support performers including Jazsmin Lewis, Sean Patrick Thomas, Leonard Earl Howze, Michael Ealy and Troy Garity. Notably absent is Anthony Anderson and his absurdist ATM subplot. New to the mix is Queen Latifah, who has taken up her larger-than-life residence in the beauty shop next door. That sets up the spinoff movie, Beauty Shop, which is scheduled to film this spring.
The Barbershop sequel is a risk, in part because original director Tim Story moved on and was replaced by Kevin Rodney Sullivan (How Stella Got Her Grove Back).
"Yes, it's daunting," Sullivan admits. "The worst thing in the world would be if you messed this up. I felt that they really set the table beautifully in terms of character development the first time. That ensemble! They really did a brilliant job of it. So that's why I took the gig. This is a playground."
Barbershop starred Ice Cube in the defining role of his acting career, as beleaguered Calvin Palmer, owner of a Chicago barbershop founded by his late father in the 1950s. Calvin wants to sell out but learns the value of maintaining a neighbourhood tradition during the course of the story.
The movie sparkled with smart, poignant and funny moments. It also sparked what Cedric The Entertainer calls "a firestorm" of controversy because of what his character, the irascible Eddie, says during a couple of his profane rants.
In addition to insulting Jesse Jackson and Martin Luther King, Cedric spouts off on what he calls the insignificance of Rosa Parks, a beacon of the U.S. civil rights movement because she once sat down on a segregated bus in the whites-only section. Everyone else assembled in the barbershop tries to shout Eddie down, but those retorts were ignored by political critics.
"I wasn't hurt," Ice Cube says of having to deal with calls for a boycott and backlash from Jesse Jackson, as well as spokesmen for Rosa Parks and the family of the late King.
"I was just confused. I was confused at the fact that: Why are some of our voices out there (in the black community) worried about a damn movie? There are a lot of problems out there that can get you on Nightline rather than talking about Barbershop the movie. It was just funny to me that some of our leaders would take that much time, effort and energy to discuss something that was loved by so many people. It was just strange."
Ice Cube also wondered why the critics took the conversation out of context, as if the filmmakers, not just one eccentric character, were trashing Parks et al. "The hoopla was about the Rosa Parks statements and the Martin Luther King statements," Ice Cube says. "But, if you look at the movie, it was really one person with that opinion and everybody else was trying to shout him down. The same here (in Barbershop 2) when we were dealing with Luther Vandross. Everybody was trying to shout him down like before when he talked about people that you shouldn't talk about."
Vandross is a tragic figure, a popular singer now felled by a stroke which has left him paralyzed. "If our movie was 15 minutes longer," Ice Cube says of Cedric's Eddie, "he would have gone on a rant about that. That's the personality that's in the barbershop and you can't dismiss it." In addition to Vandross, rapper R. Kelly and pop singer Michael Jackson both get blasted by Cedric in Barbershop 2 over accusations about their sexual behaviour.
Cedric The Entertainer says he knew the original Barbershop would cause a fuss, but not the furor it became. "I thought there was some possibility that those words, those lines, might offend a particular group of people. I didn't expect it to be the firestorm it turned in to being. I actually ended up being on the phone with Jesse Jackson. We prayed and everything."
Cedric defends the tone of the first film. That is why the original script appealed to him. "They were going inside the barbershop. They were going to do what people do inside a barbershop. If you go in any barbershop, most of the time all subject matters get to flying and people are all over the place with their opinions and what they think and believe."
Some critics of the film blamed him, not his character. "It was personal after a while and I had to let everybody know that I considered that a testament that I am a good actor -- because it was a role. It was never intended to offend or go jump down somebody's throat."
For the sequel, Cedric had only one request for the return of Eddie: That the character would not deliberately pick a fight just to be controversial again. "I think if you try to do that, if you go stir it up so that you can get controversy, that has a tendency to backfire. So I told them that, if we stumble across something that's really interesting and we're going to say something that might possibly offend people, then sure. But not at the intent of just going to pick a fight. I don't want to do that."
Neither did Ice Cube. The Barbershop series -- which could continue past this first sequel -- is not an expression of his gang-banging past or of his hard-edged rap music. Cube, who was born as O'Shea Jackson in Los Angeles 34 years ago, carefully divides his career and his personality, depending on the circumstances.
"It's about apples and oranges," he says of comparing his rap music with movies such as Barbershop or youth films such as Boyz 'N The Hood. "It's two different things."
And that contrast is good for his growing reputation as an actor and as a film producer (he serves as executive producer of Barbershop 2 and clearly ran the show on set).
"I think, when you're in this business and you're trying to gain the confidence of the box-office audience or the DVD audience or any kind of film audience, you have to be involved in good movies. And it's hard to find a good movie out here in Hollywood. When one comes along and you can be a part of it and you can make it hopefully better with your presence, then you jump at it. When I'm acting (in Barbershop) I have to be Calvin. I can't be Ice Cube up there. For the sake of being a team player and not letting my ego get involved, I try to get out of the way and just play the guy like he's supposed to be played."
Ice Cube has more sway than others, however, in part because he is more experienced than most of his co-stars.
"I probably have the most movies up under my belt. So, where you're in that position, I think you have to take some kind of leadership role, whether you're producing or not, to let everybody know that you're there (being) serious about it, so they should be too."
Comedy is serious business in the world of Barbershop.
WHAT THE FUSS WAS ABOUT
Barbershop sparked what Cedric The Entertainer calls "a firestorm" when his character sounded off on Rosa Parks, a beacon of strength and courage for the U.S. civil rights movement in the 1960s. Here is part of the conversation that sparked the furor:
Calvin (Ice Cube): "The Panthers, you gotta give it up to them. You gotta give it up to Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson and you gotta give it up to Rosa Parks, period! Because they was deep and they was on the frontlines in the '60s."
Eddie (Cedric The Entertainer): "Who the hell is Rosa Parks? (He is greeted by a chorus of protests and references to her status in the civil rights era). Why? Why? 'Cuz she sat her ass down on the bus? Man, she was tired. That's what you do when you tired. You sit your ass down. I sat down on a bus and I got throwed in jail and I ain't heared from nobody in a whole week. Now, now, I probably wouldn't say this in front of white folk but, in front of y'all I'll speak my mind. Rosa Parks ain't do nothing but sit her black ass down!"
Calvin: "It sounds like you got a little haterism in your game."
Eddie: "Like hell! There ain't no hateration or holleration in this dancery, okay? What I'm saying is, is that black people need to stop lying. There's three things that black people need to tell the truth about. One, Rodney King should have got his ass beat for driving drunk and being pulled over in a Hyundai. Two, O.J. did it. And three, Rosa Parks ain't do nothing but sit her black ass down. That's right, I said it!"
Chorus: "No, Eddie, you're wrong!"