Beauty Shop

Queen Latifah takes her don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it role from the 2004 Barbershop sequel and stretches it into this endless series of bad accents and over-the-top comedy sketches. After quitting her job as a beautician for a ridiculous pseudo-Swedish salon owner (Kevin Bacon), the royal rapper-turned-Oscar-nominated actress opens her own snip-and-clip shop. The new entrepreneur battles, predictably, with romance (with an electrician/musician played by Djimon Hounsou) and repeated citations from a corrupt city inspector. Meanwhile, her shampooing sidekicks exchange racist banter with energy, recite Maya Angelou’s poetry and ridicule the unfortunate ignorant white girl and her screeching southern accent. Although the hair-brained script has more split ends than Bacon’s fried-looking golden locks, the cast’s fiery personalities manage to keep this Beauty Shop open for business.