COMEDY
CRITIC'S CHOICE
Whether riffing on race or politics or declaring that a cockroach in his apartment was so huge he mistook it for Shaquille O'Neal, Cedric the Entertainer is one funny guy. In the guise of Eddie, a veteran barber whose mouth runs more than his clippers, the comic actor holds forth entertainingly in a breezy, welcome sequel.
Like 2002's modest original, Barbershop 2 is set primarily inside Calvin's Barbershop, a de facto community center on Chicago's South Side. This time the shop's namesake proprietor (Cube) worries that his small business faces extinction when a national chain announces plans to open a salon across the street. This allows the movie to debate such hot-button issues as the pros and cons of urban development and to poke fun at peacock politicians given to speaking in rhyme. And, as in the earlier film, Cedric gets off a few possibly controversial lines, such as referring to sniper John Allen Muhammad as "the Jackie Robinson of crime."
Much of the original cast returns and each gets a moment to shine. New to the cutting crew is Latifah, who sashays about as the sharp-tongued owner of a beauty salon next door. She's carrying a bit of a torch for the contentedly wed Calvin. "He opted for the Happy Meal instead of the Super Size," she says, pointing to her ample hips and shaking her head as if she still can't believe he'd be so dumb. (PG-13)
Kristen Stewart, Jennifer Beals
KIDS
Just as there are BabyGap and Talbots Kids, so Hollywood is now turning out pint-size versions of genre films to reach younger audiences. These movies feature kiddie casts with the same basic plot elements, hackneyed characters and vehicular chases as the grown-up films but—let's hear it for small favors—less sex, swearing and violence. The latest example is Catch That Kid, a mediocre heist/action film in which the 12-year-old heroine, Maddy (Stewart), attempts to steal $250,000 from a bank to pay for a medical operation her paralyzed dad (Sam Robards) needs to walk again. Cue the discussion about whether it's okay to do the wrong thing for the right reasons.
A remake of a 2002 Danish film called Klatretøsen, Kid is no better than it has to be to attract less-than-discriminating tweener audiences—but no worse either. Respectable actors such as Robards, Beals (who plays Maddy's mother) and James Le Gros (as an overenthusiastic bank guard) turn up here without embarrassing themselves. And Stewart (Panic Room) has a serious, almost fierce way about her that suggests she could end up an actress of substance. (PG)
Kurt Russell, Patricia Clarkson, Noah Emmerich, Eddie Cahill
DRAMA
For those familiar with ice hockey from the Mighty Ducks series of bumbling-kids-on-skates comedies, welcome to the real thing. Miracle is an ice-solid, though never sparkling, look at how the late coach Herb Brooks, who died in an auto accident last August, selected and trained 20 young men for what would become the U.S.'s 1980 gold-medal-winning Olympic hockey team. "I'm not looking for the best players," Brooks (Russell, see p. 69) tells assembled hopefuls. "I'm looking for the right players."
He found 'em. The movie shows how Brooks, using a strenuous training regime and psychological smarts, molded a team capable of beating the seemingly invincible Soviet hockey machine. Director Gavin O'Connor (Tumbleweeds) deftly frames the team's efforts within a political and social context, but even so, Miracle doesn't always transcend sports-film clichés. Though Russell and Clarkson (who plays Brooks's wife) both act with snap and conviction, the individual players remain sketchy, and the big game with the Russians goes on for what seems, at least to a non-hockey fan, like a mighty long, long time. (PG)
Osama
Exactly how terrible it was for women under the Taliban becomes horrifically clear in a relentlessly bleak Afghan film, the first made in the post-Taliban era. A girl and her widowed mother suffer brutal repression and poverty. In desperation the mother has the child masquerade as a boy to work. (PG-13)
The Return
A haunting, beautifully photographed Russian drama follows two brothers as they take a fishing trip with their dad, who has returned without explanation after years away. His sons long for his love, but question his motives. (Not rated)
- Contributors:
- Leah Rozen.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
