Beauty Shop Genre: Comedy Rated: PG-13 Directed by: BILLE WOODRUFF Starring: QUEEN LATIFAH, ALFRE WOODARD, ALICIA SILVERSTONE, MENA SUVARI, ANDIE MACDOWELL, KEVIN BACON, DJIMON HOUNSOU, KESHIA KNIGHT PULLIAM Released by: MGM In Short: Even Hollywood's biggest names can't save this "Beauty Shop," filled with over-the-top characters and a clichéd plot.

Bad Hair Day
"Beauty Shop" Not Ready for Business
By Cherie Saunders

The producers of “Barbershop” and “Barbershop 2” have now opened for business “Beauty Shop,” starring Queen Latifah as a hair stylist who risks it all to own her own salon. Fed up with the cold of Chicago, Gina Norris (Latifah) moves to Atlanta to start fresh in a posh salon with high-end clientele, where she soon clashes with the egotistical owner Jorge (Kevin Bacon) over his disrespect for shampoo girl Lynn (Alicia Silverstone).

Gina quits to open her own beauty shop in Atlanta’s urban southwest area known as “the SWATs.” She’s only able to afford a rundown fixer-upper, but soon, business is thriving. The shop’s stylists (Golden Brooks, Sherri Shephard, Alfre Woodard)—holdovers from the previous owner—begin to adjust to Gina’s warm but no-nonsense way of running things. Soon, Lynn also leaves Jorge’s and fulfills her lifelong dream as she joins Gina’s salon as a stylist. Meanwhile, an attraction builds between Gina and Joe the electrician (Djimon Hounsou), who lives in the apartment above the salon.

There’s a lot going on in “Beauty Shop”—so much that writers Kate Lanier and Norman Vance, Jr. forgot to give us a real plot. A flimsy source of drama comes from constant petty fines from a health inspector, and the constant looming of Jorge, which Bacon plays with over-the-top flamboyancy. Andie MacDowell and Mena Suvari add little as stereotypical, fish-out-of-water clients who follow Gina from Jorge’s to her new, urban-flavored salon. A plot regarding Gina’s homemade hair conditioner is squeezed in for drama at the end, but provides very little. With so many disappointing clichés, it’ll be a miracle if this “Beauty Shop” does any business.