Barbershop was one of the best Black comedies I’ve seen in awhile. It was clean, it was hilarious and it sent a positive message to the Black community about unity and supporting Black owned businesses. Of course the parade got rained on by Jesse Jackson because he couldn’t take a good joke. He turned a good family comedy into a political machine but that didn’t stop producers from making the much anticipated sequel. Now, if you’ve seen Barber Shop 2 after seeing Barbershop, then you know half the reason it wasn’t as funny as the original is because the writers were too afraid to make any daring comments or step on any toes. Editing the movie to make it politically correct ended up taking away most of the movie’s fire as we watched botched storylines get picked up and then dropped once our interest had been peaked.
The movie got me a bit worried. If Barbershop 2 played it safe, chances are Beauty Shop will too. That brought all my hopes down and got me to thinking will good quality Black family oriented films been killed off because of Jackson’s little charade with Barbershop? The answer is no. Sometime this summer, we will be graced with The Cookout. I saw the trailer for this movie in theaters when I went to see Barbershop 2.
It starts out with Tim Meadows dressed in a suit sitting down in the law chair asking why hockey has to been a bunch of white men chasing a black puck. Why can’t the puck be white? Then one of his companions makes the observation that a white puck on dried ice would be hard to see. This immediately had me laughing. The cookout is about Todd Anderson, who makes it big when He gets signed to the New Jersey Nets with a 40 million dollar contract straight out the college. In a interview when the family is asked how they are going to celebrate, they respond by saying their going to have a cookout. Sounds simple right? No, the family is having this great big cookout in their new rich, white neigborhood.
I’ll be honest that this movie is a bit stereotypical. We’ll be seeing the usual storylines of “Welfare to Millionaire” along with “Black people are like this, White people are like that?” So why I am beyond excited about seeing this movie? Because I’m a sucker for an allstar cast, especially one starring Tim Meadows. It’ll feature acting from rap recording artist Eve, Farrah Fawcet (Charlie’s Angels), Danny Glover, Meagan Good (Biker Boyz, Deliver us from Eva, “21 questions” music video), Jenifer Lewis (Strong Medicine, Cast Away), Queen Latifah and Ja Rule. This movie also marks the entrance of Quran Pender into the film industry.
The Cookout gives me the impression it’s the comedic version of Good Fences starring Danver Glover and Whoopi Goldberg. If you want a good laugh, go ahead and see this movie when it hits theaters sometime later this year but if you have seen Good Fences, don’t expect this film to hold a candle to it. You can view the trailer at IMDb but the resolution is so horrible, it’s really not worth it.
