Classic Movie Review Stir of Echoes

Stir of Echoes (1999) 

Directed by David Koepp 

Written by David Koepp 

Starring Kevin Bacon, Kathryn Erbe, Kevin Dunn, Illeana Douglas 

Release Date September 10th 1999 

Published August 21st, 2023 

Stir of Echoes is such a great title. It's both esoteric and evocative. It creates a sense of history being brought swirling back to life but not fully. It's the perfect title for this movie about the echoes of the recent past resounding into to the present and leading into a terrifying and sad future unfolding before Tom Witzky (Kevin Bacon), his wife, Maggie (Kathryn Erbe), their son, Jake (Zachary David Cope), and the tight knit neighborhood that welcomed this family with open arms. 

Six months ago, just before Jake and Maggie moved into their new rented home in closely knit Chicago neighborhood, a young girl went missing. Her name is Samantha Kozac and she's been written off as a runaway by most. Samantha was mentally challenged and this has also been used as an excuse to dismiss her disappearance. Samantha is almost entirely unknown to Jake and Maggie even as they've been brought wholly into their new neighborhood home. 

Jake is a failed musician supporting his family by working as a telephone lineman and bitterly lamenting his life. Maggie is far more content, loving her husband and raising their son Jake. For his part, Jake is a happy little boy who likes to indulge in talking to imaginary beings. At least, that's what it would seem from the outside. In reality, Jake has an innate ability to speak with the dead. Moreover, he's been speaking with Samantha Kozak, though his parents are not aware of this. 

Meanwhile, Jake has a strained relationship with his wife's sister, Lisa (Illeana Douglas). Lisa is a free spirit who is not a fan of grumpy, bitter Jake and isn't afraid to say so. Lisa fancies herself as a hypnotist in training and when challenged about her new profession at a neighborhood party, her conflict with Jake comes to a head. Jake challenges Lisa to hypnotize him and after a little hemming and hawing, she agrees. Taking Jake deep into his own subconscious, Lisa plants a suggestion for Jake open up more and be more receptive to the world around him. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Horror in the 90s Tremors

Tremors (1990) 

Directed by Ron Underwood

Written by Ron Underwood, S.S Wilson 

Starring Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Michael Gross, Reba McEntire, Finn Carter

Release Date January 19th, 1990 

Box Office Gross $16.9 million 

Somehow, I had managed to convince myself that I didn't like the movie Tremors. I don't know where this opinion came from as I am not sure I had actually watched the movie until now. I have little memory of seeing it before seeing it for this project and quite enjoying it. Indeed, I really had a great time watching Tremors. Why I thought I had disliked it is a mystery to me. It's my own personal Mandela Effect, my mind was convinced that I had disliked the movie when reality was that I had not seen Tremors before. 

That's about as deep as I can be in a review of a movie with such shallow pleasures as Tremors. That might sound insulting, but it's not intended that way. Tremors is quite shallow but that's not a bad thing. Instead of going for anything of substance, Tremors is about shocks and thrills, a gross monster and plenty of gross jokes as well. The movie is intentionally dumb with dopey characters getting by on their wits and dumb luck as they battle one of the most inventive movie monsters in quite many years. 

Tremors stars Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward as Val and Earl, Nevada rednecks working every part time job in their tiny, tiny community. Indeed, Perfection, Nevada has all of 14 residents. That is until residents start to get sucked into the ground and eaten by giant, poop brown slugs with snakes for tongues. It takes a little while to get going but once Val and Earl find out about the giant monsters, the movie takes on a much faster pace and cleverly pays homage to drive-in monsters of the past. 

That's the true heart of Tremors, an old school monster movie. Elements of The Blob, The Killer Shrews, Night of the Lepus, Shriek of the Mutilated and so on. Tremors isn't as much of a blood and guts horror movie as those films, the kills are relatively tame by the standards of some of the great 60s drive-in movies, but the homage is still quite clear. In the heart of Tremors, this is a movie you half watch while making out in a car, in a field, with a tinny speaker in the window and a sea of fellow cars stuffed with friends. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

 

Movie Review My One and Only

My One and Only (2009) 

Directed by Richard Loncraine 

Written by Charlie Peters 

Starring Logan Lerman, Kevin Bacon, Renee Zellweger, Chris Noth

Release Date August 21st, 2009 

Published November 29th, 2009 

In My One and Only Renee Zellweger brings southern propriety to life in a way that reveals the tragedy behind the preening self importance. As the wandering eyed Ann Devereau, mother of two teenage boys, Ms. Zellweger brings both twinkle and tear to her character with spirit, bravado and beauty.

George (Logan Lerman) loves living in ....New York...., the lively streets, the cold, the culture, are the necessities of a budding writer. Thus, when his mother Anne announces a sudden move to ....Boston...., George is none too pleased. With George and his brother Robbie (Mark Rendell) in tow, Mom buys a powder blue Cadillac and sets off to find a new man to care for her family.

Her last husband, George's father Dan (Kevin Bacon) was a serial philanderer that she happily leaves behind despite having no means of making money; Anne is not exactly the working kind. In ....Boston...., Anne quickly connects with an old boyfriend, Wallace (Steven Weber), who promptly ransacks her purse and skips the bill on their dinner date.

That's Ok because the encounter leads directly to another suitor, Dr. Harlan Williams (Chris Noth). He takes care of her bill and soon is making wedding plans. The Doc's temper unfortunately clashes with George and it's not long before the road is calling again and the family is off to ....Pittsburgh.....

Here, again, another man waits. His name is Charlie (Eric McCormick) and despite competition from a much younger woman, Anne is confident she has found a new man. This series of scenes are among the films best as George bonds with a neighbor girl named Paula (Molly C. Quinn) and for a moment settles into his mother's world.

Well, if that weren't abruptly ended there wouldn't be much of a movie. The scene shifts across the country to ....St. Louis.... where Anne's sister lives and eventually to ....Los Angeles.... where Robbie dreams of becoming an actor and George longs for the comforts of ....New York City.....

The story of My One and Only is a fictionalized account of the teen years of actor George Hamilton and the portrait is striking. ....Hamilton.... has become something of a pop culture goofball with his leathery tan and willingness to be the butt of the joke. The modern ....Hamilton.... bears little resemblance to the thoughtful, Catcher in the ....Rye.... loving George of this story.

True or not to Mr. Hamilton's life it is a fabulous story and well told by Director Richard Loncraine. Having struggled to make the move from director of proper English period pieces, The Gathering Storm, My House in Umbria to a modern Hollywood moviemaker, Wimbledon, Firewall, Mr. Loncraine is for the first time comfortable telling a Hollywood style story.

My One and Only is frothy and showbizy with just the right air of angst and desperation.  Ms. Zellweger's indomitable heroine is a creation of years of Hollywood stereotypes of the 'Southern Belle' with her classy pretension to glamour and yet she feels fully real. 

Logan Lerman brings a deep soul to George. Looking like a young Christian Slater, Lerman is a terribly handsome kid with real chops. When the reality of who Lerman is playing is revealed you may find it hard to believe as the uptight, soulful intellectual George of this film clashes with the modern pop cult version of George Hamilton we now know.

A fantastic story, exceptionally well told, My One and Only is one of the surprise films of 2009. Having slipped through the cracks, the film received little box office attention before popping up on DVD. Now, as awards season approaches My One and Only is barely on the radar and it's a terrible shame. Ms. Zellweger and Mr. Lerman both deliver awards caliber performances.

The film itself reveals the evolution of Director Richard Loncraine and promises even better work ahead. Too many people missed My One and Only in theaters; do not forget it now that it has arrived on DVD.

Movie Review: Death Sentence

Death Sentence (2007) 

Directed by James Wan

Written by Ian MacKenzie Jeffers

Starring Kevin Bacon, Kelly Preston, Garrett Hedlund, Aisha Tyler, John Goodman

Release Date August 31st, 2007

Published August 30th, 2007

Death Wish is the Citizen Kane of revenge movies. That 1974 film starring taciturn tough guy Charles Bronson is too revenge what Julia Roberts is too romantic comedy. The writer of the book Death Wish, Brian Garfield is said to have liked the movie but subsequent sequels that deviated from his best selling book series had turned him off to Hollywood.

Now, more than 30 years later, one of Garfield's Death Wish follow ups, Death Sentence, has been turned into a Hollywood feature and while the author is said to be satisfied with the final product, audience expectations will be left unfulfilled.

Kevin Bacon stars in Death Sentence as Nick Hume a father of two with a great wife (Kelly Preston) and a great job that has given his family security. That security is shattered in the blink of an eye when, after taking his oldest son Brenden (Stuart Lafferty) to a hockey game, Brenden is gunned down at a gas station as Nick looked on.

The murder was committed by a teenager as a gang initiation ritual. Nick saw the kid who did it but when he is told that prosecutors will seek a plea bargain rather than a trial, he decides to take matters into his own hands. Nick tracks down the kid and reaps his vengeance. Actions have consequences however and when it turns out that the kid is the little brother of a ruthless gang leader named Billy Darley (Garrett Hedlund), Nick finds himself at war to protect what is left of his family.

Directed by James Wan, Death Sentence is a complicated revenge fantasy that becomes more and more outlandish as it goes on. Though grounded by a serious star performance by Kevin Bacon, Death Sentence paints an increasingly loony series of deaths and reprisals into its plot, so many that you may have a hard time keeping track of who's dead and who's alive.

That said, James Wan is a pro director. He was the progenitor of the Saw series with co-writer Leigh Whannell and invented the complicated aethetics and plotting of that terrific series. His follow up directing gig, Dead Silence was a twilight zone influenced mindfuck that worked cheap thrills into a grand guignol plot. With Death Sentence he makes an uncomfortable transition out of the horror genre.

In tact is Wan's talent for tight, quick visuals and snaky storytelling. What is missing however is depth and perspective. Where Saw is an intricate morality play covered in blood and Dead Silence was a twisty Twilight Zone homage, Death Sentence is mostly about its violence with only a passing glance at the merits of revenge.

Death Sentence wants to ask the question 'what would you do if someone killed your child'. Unfortunately, the script from first time writer Ian Jeffers becomes distracted with the battle of wills between Kevin Bacon's everyman and Garrett Hedlund's ruthless villain. The battle is kind of compelling but as the violence becomes more and more over the top; the perspective goes missing and it becomes little more than a series of staged gun battles.

It's a shame because there is a good deal of potential in this movie. One big missed opportunity comes in the character of Bones played by John Goodman. Introduced as a gun dealer, Bones' connection to one of the two main protagonists is a sly inclusion that should have had a more interesting payoff. As it is, the potential for this character is unrealized after just one terrific scene between Goodman and Bacon.

Death Sentence is a movie that should be better than it is. With Kevin Bacon's exceptional lead performance and director James Wan's skilled direction, it should be more satisfying than it is. As it is, Death Sentence is a modest disappointment. Not a bad film, just not a good enough film for me to recommend.

Movie Review Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th (1980) 

Directed by Sean S. Cunningham

Written by Victor Miller 

Starring Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Harry Crosby, Kevin Bacon, Laurie Bartram

Release Date May 9th, 1980

Published August 17th, 2003 

It seems many horror fans have been operating under great delusion for a number of years. That delusion is that Jason Voorhees was the star of each of the Friday the 13th films. That is not the case. Nine sequels with Jason as the focal point have colored the minds of many fans of Jason's high body count. In fact the first Friday the 13th film could be considered a stand-alone picture. It operates as a revenge movie/psycho horror film. Jason is merely a plot point, a motivation.

What is far more interesting though is how much you miss the Jason of myth as you revisit the first Friday the 13th. Over time, that myth has become a charming little joke of over the top beheadings and implausible returns from the grave. The first Friday the 13th is quite tepid in comparison with it's quasi realistic violence and complete lack of the supernatural.

The story has been copied numerous times in numerous knock off's, and of course the film itself was in fact a knock off but I digress. A group of nubile camp counselors has assembled at Camp Crystal Lake at the behest of the new owner Steve Christy (Peter Brouwer). But not without having been warned by the nearby residents that the camp is cursed. It's seems that in 1957 a young boy drowned in the lake. The following year, two counselors were brutally murdered. Each time the camp was reopened a new tragedy befell the new counselors. Nevertheless, our intrepid counselors move ahead with renovations.

It's not long however before the bodies begin to pile up. First, it’s the camps new cook Annie (Robbie Morgan) who never actually makes it to the camp. Then a couple, Jack (Kevin Bacon) and Marcie (Jeanine Taylor), who make the classic horror film mistake of having sex. After a few more murders, including the offscreen slaying of the camp’s owner, it's down to young Alice (Adrienne King) to fight off our heretofore unseen assailant.

Director Sean S. Cunningham, a veteran horror producer, doesn't bring much style to the film, though his effects and makeup are quite good. Cunningham lacks mostly in his building of suspense. The decision to leave the killer offscreen seems similar to Steven Spielberg's trouble with the shark in Jaws. It's not that he wanted the shark off-screen, it just didn't work. The same could be said of Cunningham. That keeping the killer off-screen for most of the film was not a creative choice, but one of necessity, as if he wasn't sure until late in the game how he would play it. His choice of killers is a debate for the ages.

Some horror fans claim that the killer is a great shocker that plays off stereotypical archetypes in an ironic surprise twist. I say the producers couldn't think of anything better and what they came up with is lame and horribly contrived. I am of the school of horror fans who believe that the series didn't really begin until the second film when Jason arose from the grave, not wearing the hockey mask by the way. He began a legendary run that continues soon with the recently released Freddy Vs Jason. 

Movie Review In the Cut

In the Cut (2003)

Directed by Jane Campion

Written by Jane Campion, Susanna Moore

Starring Meg Ryan, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kevin Bacon 

Release Date October 31st, 2003 

Published October 30th, 2003 

Meg Ryan is at a serious career crossroads. She can no longer get by on her kewpie-doll romantic comedy roles (she's been replaced in those roles by Kate Hudson). She is now desperate to redefine herself in a manner that is appropriate to her age (42! Looks not a day over 30) and fading star power. In The Cut is the first attempt to change people's perception and while she delivers a fine performance, the film that surrounds her is an insultingly stupid, cop movie cliché.

In The Cut stars Ryan as Frannie, a creative writing teacher with an affinity for slang terms. She is planning a book about the subject with help from one of her students, a charismatic young black kid named Cornelius (Sharrief Pugh). The kid has an obvious crush on his teacher and there is the slightest bit of sexual tension between them. When the two meet up at a bar to trade new slang terms, Frannie witnesses a man being serviced by a woman in the bathroom. That woman is later found dead behind Frannie's apartment.

The officer investigating the case is Detective Malloy (Mark Ruffalo) who shows an immediate attraction to Frannie despite her frigid treatment of him in their first meeting. As he investigates the murder, which is linked to a series of murders by a serial killer, Malloy flirts terribly with Frannie and she relents to date him even though he persists with questions about the murder while on the date. Malloy is also quite blunt in his intentions about having Frannie in bed, telling her on the first date that he will fuck her in any way she wants.

Like most women, Frannie can't resist this guy who is obviously bad for her, so bad in fact that she begins to suspect him of the murders and still dates him and beds him. Her suspicions go back to the mystery man in the bar bathroom who's face she didn't see but who's odd wrist tattoo she does remember.

The other people in Frannie's life are her slutty sister Pauline (played with unending skill by Jennifer Jason Leigh), who suggests that Frannie go out with the cop if only to have sex with him. There is also Frannie's ex-boyfriend John (played by the uncredited Kevin Bacon), a mentally unbalanced med student who has taken to stalking her since she dumped him.

Each of the men in the film, including Malloy's partner Detective Rodriguez (Nick Damici), become suspects in the serial killings while female characters line up to be victims. Whether that is meant as an overt statement or not we are left to wonder. What is clear is that we have seen this movie before in a number of straight to video and late night HBO movies. Woman falls in love with a man who may be a killer while other characters act just shady enough to be suspect as well. Then the heroine goes out of her way to blindly place herself in danger in service of the idiot plot.

This is one tired old cliché and one that director Jane Campion should be ashamed to reuse. Campion is too skilled a writer and director for such an awfully conventional thriller plot. Based on a novel by Susanna Moore, who also helped in the adaptation, the only innovation Campion brings to this series of thriller clichés is her arty, pretentious, handheld camera style. Campion's camera bounces around in cars, fades in and out of focus and lends a gauzy haze to nearly every scene and it is eye-catching and quite well conceived. However the stylishness is entirely wasted on this idiot plot.

Of course what everyone is wondering about In The Cut is, how does Meg Ryan look naked? She looks terrific. Unfortunately, as Campion builds the sexual tension in every scene she forgets to make the sex in any way important to the plot. The sex scene between Meg and Mark Ruffalo is one of a number of well-acted scenes by these two excellent actors but the dumb, stupid, idiot plot, undermines both.

Anyone remember the Denzel Washington movie The Bone Collector? Remember how they chose that film’s serial killer by pulling a cast member's name out of a hat (I think that is how they did that). In The Cut does exactly the same thing. The film seems to choose its serial killer randomly and completely outside of the plot and established characters. This forces Ryan into one forced scene of stupidity after another before finally ending with a quiet thud.

It's doubtful that so much talent and skill has gone into making such an awful film. In The Cut is well crafted and well acted but the story is so stupid that you hate it even more than if it had been a complete disaster.

Movie Review: Trapped

Trapped (2002)

Directed by Luis Mandoki 

Written by Greg Iles

Starring Charlize Theron, Stuart Townsend, Kevin Bacon, Courtney Love, Dakota Fanning 

Release Date September 20th, 2002 

Published September 20th, 2002 

One would hope that the recent spate of child kidnappings would preclude Hollywood hacks from using that situation as a screenwriting trick. The child in danger plot is the cheapest of the cheap manipulative tricks screenwriters use when they are creatively bankrupt. We, however should not be surprised that Hollywood doesn't care. These hacks have so little ingenuity that the child in danger is the only tool in their box. The god-awful action film, Ballistic: Ecks Vs Sever employs this cliche, and the film Trapped does Ballistic: Ecks Vs Sever one better by basing the entire film on the hackneyed plot device.

Charlize Theron and Stuart Townsend star as a loving husband and wife with a cute as a button daughter. When Townsend leaves on a business trip, a sleazy con artist played by Kevin Bacon seizes the opportunity to kidnap Townsend's daughter and hold his wife hostage. As this is happening, Townsend himself is taken hostage by Bacon's partner, played by Courtney Love. Pruitt Taylor Vince rounds out the cast as the kidnapper with a soft spot for the kid and a softer head who is easily manipulated by the plot. Essentially the daughter will be held for 24 hours, after which ransom will be paid and the child will be returned to the parents.

Bacon is effectively creepy, while Love does a variation of her real life persona, as a drugged out nympho. Townsend and Theron are wooden and surprisingly dull. (Well, at least Townsend was surprisingly dull.) Earlier this year, Townsend starred in Queen Of The Damned, and though that film was very bad, Townsend had some effectively scary moments that, in a better film, could have been star-making moments. In Trapped, Townsend is woefully miscast as a rich yuppie doctor who still dresses as if he were an 18-year old skater with a gold card.

Trapped is undone by its premise and screenwriter Greg Iles, who also wrote the book on which the film is based. Iles and director Luis Mandoki apparently don't read the newspaper, though it doesn't take a genius to intuit how many people might be sensitive to the kidnapping of a child being used as a plot. Films that put children in danger are some of the lowest forms of film--right up there with white actors in blackface and Freddie Prinze Jr.

Trapped is the bastard stepchild of numerous child in danger films, and arguably the worst of the bunch.

Movie Review: X-Men First Class

X-Men First Class 

Directed by Matthew Vaughn 

Written by Matthew Vaughn, Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman 

Starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Rose Byrne, Kevin Bacon, January Jones, 

Release Date June 1st, 2011 

Published May 29th, 2011 

It's not a reboot or a re-imagination. Nor is it a sequel. "X-Men: The First Class" is that rare breed known as the prequel, a recap of events set prior to a previous story. In this case fans of the 'X-Men' movies get to go back in time and see where Professor X and Magneto came from and why they developed into mortal enemies.

A Traumatic and Dramatic Childhood

"X-Men: The First Class" takes us back to 1942 and recalls for us, as previous 'X-Men' installments have, Erik Lehnsherr's torturous childhood in which he survived a Nazi death camp. We've seen what happened when his parents were torn away from him, 'The First Class' shows us what happened next and the traumatic experience that created the monster Magneto.

Meanwhile, also in 1942, a young Charles Xavier, tucked safely away in his parents' upstate New York palace, begins to discover his talent for reading minds. It's a trick that comes in handy when a burglar somehow invades the home pretending to be Charles's mother. The intruder is actually a young mutant named Raven but we will come to know her as the assassin Mystique.

Erik Lehnsherr Nazi Hunter

Cut to 20 years later, Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) is a Nazi hunter torturing and killing his way up a list of Nazis on the run on his way to his long time tormenter, Dr. Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon.) Naturally, his search leads to Argentina, often thought of as a haven for ex-Nazis, and a scene for the former "Inglorious Basterd" Fassbender that evokes a little violent, Tarentino nostalgia, with the gore dialed down just a tad.

Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and his adopted sister Raven (Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence) are together at Oxford when Charles is approached by a CIA Agent named Moira (Rose Byrne) who accidentally stumbled across Dr. Shaw and his assistant, a telepath named Emma Frost (January Jones), plotting the start of World War 3 and a worldwide nuclear annihilation that only mutants could survive.

A Nod to the Faithful Fanboys

It would take far too long to detail what comes next with the discovery other mutants and their powers and the founding of the first X-Men team and to be honest, none of the young mutants is remotely as interesting as Professor X, Mystique or Magneto. This is their origin story and it doesn't help that of the other mutants in 'First Class' only Beast plays a role in the sequels and that is only a minor role.

The main flaw of "X-Men: The First Class" is too many characters and not enough interesting things to do with them. Director Matthew Vaughn in a nod of faithfulness to X-Men comic book fans, I'm guessing, has kept these peripheral young mutants in the story because they were part of the first troop of X-Men in the comic but the reality of the movie is, these kids only seem to get in the way of the action and bloat the film's run time to a butt-numbing two hours and 25 minutes.

Putting aside the film's flabbiness, there are enough effective scenes and compelling performances in X-Men: The First Class for me to recommend it. I mentioned earlier Fassbender's scene in Argentina, an effective and exciting bit of violence. Also excellent is the scene of Kevin Bacon's malevolent Dr. Shaw forcing young Erik to use his talent through torture and the astonishing aftermath of his cruelty.

McAvoy and Fassbender

Those and just about every scene between James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender elevate "X-Men: The First Class" above many other comic book movies. When these two exceptional actors stare each other down the air around them is charged, even during a friendly exchange. McAvoy's Professor X and Fassbender's Magneto are so perfectly matched that a whole movie of them talking to each other about revenge, morality and murder could be worth the price of a ticket.

I am recommending "X-Men: The First Class" for McAvoy and Fassbender and for the terrific atmosphere of early sixties paranoia and excitement created by director Matthew Vaughn. Yes, Vaughn should have been a little less faithful to the fanboys and spent a little more time in the editing bay but what he captured in the history of the 'X-Men' movie universe and in the relationship between McAvoy and Fassbender is really really terrific and highly compelling.

Movie Review: Beauty Shop

Beauty Shop (2005) 

Directed by Billie Woodruff

Written by Kate Lanier

Starring Queen Latifah, Alicia Silverstone, Alfre Woodard, Mena Suvari, Kevin Bacon, Djimon Hounsou 

Release Date March 30th, 2005

Published March 30th, 2005 

Ever since her breakthrough role and Oscar nomination with 2002's Chicago, Queen Latifah has struggled to find material worthy of her talent.  Chicago has led to a string of awful movies like Cookout, Taxi, and Bringing Down The House, the latter being the only hit of the bunch and arguably the worst of them. None of these awful films, however, has dimmed the Queen's star presence. She is still a welcome presence onscreen even if her movies don't do her talent injustice.

The latest example of Queen Latifah's star presence, the Barbershop spinoff Beauty Shop, is yet another bad movie where Queen Latifah outshines bad material.

In Barbershop 2 Queen Latifah introduced the character of Gina, beauty shop owner who had the guts and talent to go toe to toe with Cedric The Entertainer's cantankerous old man, Eddy. In Beauty Shop Gina has packed up her talent and attitude and headed for Atlanta where she works at an upscale salon and hopes to soon open her own shop.

Her boss is your typically effeminate diva stylist, Jorge Christophe (a nearly unrecognizable Kevin Bacon with a faux Euro-trash accent). Jorge constantly dumps his work off on Gina who earns the trust and loyalty of his clients because of her talent. However when Jorge criticizes Gina in front of the entire salon, saying that he "owns her ass", Gina quits.

With the help of family, friends and an especially easy to please bank loan officer, Gina buys a run down beauty shop in a questionable part of town. The shop comes equipped with a noisy neighbor/potential love interest (Djimon Hounsou), bad electricity and a staff of oddball stylists not used to Gina's more upscale tastes. Among her new employees are the former owner, the Maya Angelou quoting Miss Josephine (Alfre Woodard, looking uncomfortable in this rare comedic role), Chanel (Golden Brooks) the requisite attitude problem or more precisely the bitch, and Ida (Sherry Shepherd) the dim witted one.

Thankfully also coming along with Gina from Jorge's is a talented stylist named Lynn (Alicia Silverstone, stymied with a bad southern accent), the one white girl in an all black shop. Lynn naturally is at the center of much of the film's uncomfortable racial humor.  On the bright side for Gina, some of the upscale clients from Jorge's have followed her, including the sweet natured Terri (Andie McDowell) and the bitchy Joanne (Mena Suvari).

The film's plot centers on finances as the shop, as it was in the Barbershop movies, is constantly in dire financial straits. Everything is falling apart, the electricity is bad and a nasty building inspector seems to have it out for Gina. That said, though, the plot is very much secondary to the interaction of this over-the-top group of characters and is not the film's strong point.

The one thing the film has going for it is the star presence and charisma of Queen Latifah whose common sense straight man never really gels with the caricatures that surround her. That is certainly not Latifah's fault.  She seems dead on throughout, especially in her romance with Djimon Hounsou's character, Joe. Though Hounsou never seems comfortable with the comedic part of his role, he does know how to handle the quiet romantic scenes and had they been given the chance these two actors could have done something very interesting.

Unfortunately there are too many other things going on in Beauty Shop for Queen Latifah and Djimon Hounsou to really connect. Music video Director Bille Woodruff (Honey with Jessica Alba) is too caught up with his quirky characters to give Latifah the attention she deserves. Queen Latifah is radiant and funny and a director with more imagination than Mr. Woodruff might have forgotten about trying to make Barbershop 3 and focused the film on Gina and her romance with Joe.

I really cannot say enough nice things about Queen Latifah, it's a shame that the producers of Beauty Shop did not like her as much as me. If they did, they might have forgotten about cloning the Barbershop movies around her and instead allowed the story to focus more on romantic comedy and less on rehashed characters and jokes. Queen Latifah deserves better and we in the audience especially deserve better.