Weak, lazy ‘Beauty Shop’ wastes likable cast

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In theaters

BEAUTY SHOP, directed by Billie Woodruff, written by Kate Lanier and Norman Vance Jr., 105 minutes, rated PG-13.

The new comedy “Beauty Shop” stars Queen Latifah as a beleaguered hairstylist fighting the system and fighting the man. She’s a widow struggling to raise her daughter while also making a go of it as the owner of her own beauty shop in an Atlanta ghetto.

The film is an offspring of the popular “Barbershop” franchise, with all signs suggesting it will feature the same biting social satire that made the original “Barbershop” such a smart, controversial hit.

But that’s not the case here. “Beauty Shop” is so timid and homogenized, it could put a flop in your flip.

The film stars Latifah as Gina Norris – the snippy co-star of “Barbershop 2” – who has recently moved from the southside of Chicago to Atlanta. There, she works at an exclusive salon for the Eurotrashy Jorge Christophe, who is played here by Kevin Bacon in full mincing swish.

He is hardly the film’s only stereotype. For instance, the movie’s idea of black women is that they must be overbearing, obnoxious, castrating clowns ready to brawl or to sell a joke. Conversely, white people are predominantly square, awkward, hopeless. If this were satire, the movie might work. But “Beauty Shop” isn’t satire. It’s just lazy and unimaginative, with writing that’s stuck in a rut.

The cast is likable, but squandered, with Alicia Silverstone lost as the dumbest of hair-burning hillbillies, Djimon Hounsou almost wordless as Gina’s grinning love interest, and Andie MacDowell and Mena Suvari serviceable as members of Gina’s wealthy, white clientele. They dig Gina’s home-grown hair conditioner, Hair Crack, so much that they follow her to her new digs, thus causing all sorts of problems with Jorge.

This is Latifah’s fifth disappointment in a row, and it deepens the divide between the outstanding work she did in her Academy Award-nominated performance in 2002’s “Chicago,” and her more recent work in such underwhelming duds as “The Cookout” and “Taxi.”

When audiences love you, as they do Latifah, they can be enormously forgiving. But even Latifah can’t afford to make many more films like this. “Beauty Shop” doesn’t lack charisma and it does offer the occasional chuckle, but it leans so hard on its ethnic, gender and sexual stereotypes, it mines a comedy of no significance. Its situations are forced, the writing is trash, and as a result, it has the stink of a bad perm all over it.

Grade: C-

On video and DVD

SPANGLISH, written and directed by James L. Brooks, 110 minutes, rated PG-13.

What becomes clear midway through James L. Brooks’ “Spanglish” is how little air there is in the movie. Nobody breathes here – they just exhale, scream, blather and sigh. And then they do it again. And then they do it again.

You can hardly blame them. Brooks obviously conceived, wrote and directed this phony dud with his head stuck in a cloud of ether, which likely accounts for the reason his film is such a dizzying mess and why his characters behave as stupidly as they do.

Take, for instance, Deborah Clasky, who is played here by Tea Leoni with the sort of hysterical, high-pitched shrill that suggests somebody here forgot their meds. Deborah is one of the most irritating, isolating characters to hit theaters in a while.

Moody, mean and underhanded, she’s a selfish, castrating witch on a bender. With her relentless drive, she ridicules her daughter Bernice (Sarah Steele) for being overweight; she patronizes her husband, John (Adam Sandler), for the sheer hell of it; and she has snubbed her mother, Evelyn (Cloris Leachman), straight into alcoholism. As a result, she makes for one miserable time at the movies.

Deborah’s whole being is focused solely on her own needs, and while her overbearing presence isn’t the only reason the movie fails, each time she enters the screen with her tantrums, her tears, her nasty scowl and her snotty nose, the movie sinks lower into a pit from which it can’t recover.

“Spanglish” is being sold as the story of a proud Mexican woman named Flor (Paz Vega), who comes illegally to the States with her daughter Cristina (Shelbie Bruce) and eventually finds work cleaning for the wealthy Claskys. Flor doesn’t speak English, but Cristina does, and between them, they survive well enough until Deborah starts to meddle.

That’s the real story we get. Deborah favors Cristina more than her own daughter -the sweet, likable Bernice – for reasons that are clear to everyone. Cristina is slim, smart and conventionally pretty – the trophy child Deborah always wanted – and, my, doesn’t Deborah make a mess of things as her stronghold over Cristina tightens.

Toss into this mix a forced, passionless flirtation between John and Flor, which generates all the heat of a lima bean, and some sage observations about life from mother Evelyn, who has seen her share of worms at the bottom of a tequila bottle, and what you get isn’t Spanglish. It’s Manglish.

Grade: D

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, and are archived at Rotten

Tomatoes.com. He may be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.

The Video-DVD Corner

Renting a video or a DVD? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores. Those in bold print are new to video stores this week.

Alfie – C-

Alien vs. Predator – B

Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy – B+

Bad Education – A

Being Julia – B+

The Bourne Supremacy – B

Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason – C

Cellular – B+

Closer – B-

Collateral – B+

Dawn of the Dead – A-

De-Lovely – B

Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story – B

Elektra – C-

Ella Enchanted – B

Envy – D

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – A-

Exorcist: The Beginning – F

Fat Albert – C+

Finding Neverland – C

Flight Of The Phoenix – C-

The Forgotten – D

Friday Night Lights – B+

Hero – B+

I Heart Huckabees – C-

Hotel Rwanda – B+

The Incredibles – A

I, Robot – B+

Kill Bill Vol. 2 – B

King Arthur – B

Ladder 49 – B

The Manchurian Candidate – B+

Maria Full Of Grace – A

The Motorcycle Diaries – A-

Napoleon Dynamite – B+

The Notebook – B+

Ocean’s Twelve – C-

Open Water – A-

Ray – A

Saw – D

Shall We Dance? – B

Shark Tale – B-

Shaun Of The Dead – B+

Sideways – A

Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow – A-

Spanglish – D

The Spongebob Squarepants Movie – C

Taxi – D+

Vera Drake – A

The Woodsman – B+