The Barber

A very interesting twist to the hold serial killer story, with great acting from Scott Glenn and Chris Coy. Yes, some plot twists can easily be spotted beforehand, but I guess this is Cinema, not sleight-of-hand. And yes... the choices made by the female police character are plain dumb, but overall a good watch. On hindsight, 90% of the credit for the quality of this movie should go straight to Scott Glenn.

Seems like I like movies with the title the barber thoroughly enjoyed this film and the barber with malcolm McDowell. This film wasnt your knock down drag out action thriller or a gore fest serial killer film. It's a mystery thriller with a couple of decent twists and also features excellent performances by the cast especially mr Scott Glenn. I'm very happy we purchased the bluray as we'll watch it annually!! Very well written and directed with a average at best budget they did fantastic. Watch it or better yet purchase the bluray on Ebay cheap like we did.

This movie is excellent. And the people who say it's not all have the same complaint. It's not a noir neo noir film with endless 'twists'. A twists within twists and yet more twists. It's not told backwards it does have weird cuts and camera work. And Lord knows no shakeycam. How can there even exist a movie that goes from A to B to C without the obligatory 'slow burn' that starts nowhere goes nowhere and trails off to nothing like so many other highly rated movies do? That's the beauty of this film. It's tight, compact, direct, well acted, well constructed no nonsense no making the audience jump through hoops to appreciate what a genius the director sees himself as. Scott Glenn is great as a homespun malevolence playing it easy. Chris Coy does an excellent job of playing a guy who 'might' be a bad guy. All I can take one point off is the Audrey character and her involvement. Her character is unneeded entirely.

With a fairly engaging back story, good overall acting, and plot twists that make sense / don't feel overtly contrived, The Barber has plenty going for it as a thriller. However, there's just something overall missing, something that could have probably made it a much better film.

The pacing is so-so; it doesn't drag and in fact there are a few points where I felt things were skimmed over leaving me guessing. The dialog, perhaps, is where things got lackluster. I just had a tough time empathizing with the main characters. I was definitely interested in what they were going though but I felt no emotional involvement.

Still, you could do a lot worse if you're looking for a bit of entertainment, and its darker themes may even leave you with some philosophical musings after the credits have rolled.

The main reason why I was curious about THE BARBER for years it's because it's one of the last movies where Scott Glenn played the lead and as I saw it I found it better than the tiepid 5,8 score. But it still has some problems, and we'll look them.

This is a movie split in two stories that eventually interwine. In the first, Chief Gary Hardaway (Stephen Tobolowsky) is looking for murderer Eugene Van Wingerdt (Glenn) known as the barber because he uses a straight razor for murdering his victims. In the second, a young wannabe killer named John McCormack follows Van Wingerdt as his mentor up until the truth comes out that Eugene was using him all the time. When the two stories interwine it's a bit too easy see where it's going but it's best if you see it for yourselves.

As I said, the acting by Glenn and Tobolowsky was good as usual with them. But I can see why some don't like it. First, you have to have high tolerance for gruesome atmospheres (if you saw and liked SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, RESURRECTION and the recently released LONGLEGS it will help) and second, the direction is at times unfocused. But taking it as it is, it's still a good thriller worth a view for fans of the genre.