Nora's Hair Salon is about ... well, what it says: Nora's hair salon. Jennifer Lewis plays Nora, the owner of a hair salon with quite a lot of employees for the little work they seem to be doing.

Of course, each of those employees has some quirk or eccentricity of sorts. While a gay hair dresser and his boyfriend "Delicious" acting like drag queens might have been funny ten years ago, obviously, the writer of this film didn't quite catch up with the times.

It gets even worse when, in a desperate attempt to get some "Names" into the film, Lil' Kim once again stomps around a movie for no particular reason other than to attract an audience. Actually, her part is that of Lil' Kim who seems to be date-deprived to the point where she lets a gay hair dresser fool her into thinking he's straight. And then she follows him to his hair salon and, although Delicious sits in the chair, she believes the "I'm straight" routine once more.

That isn't half as embarrassing as Whitney Houston's guest appearance in one of Nora's dream sequences. The overdone dialog in that scene is corny even for a dream.

Bottom line, Nora runs the hair salon in typcial stereotype Mother Hen fashion. Clorie (Tamala Jones) rescues one client's hair, so she not only gets a job with Nora but, since she lives with some thug pimp who smacks her around, she also gets to live with Nora. Of course, when the pimp sends his assistant thugs to bring Clorie back, the hair salon folk take care of the little problem. They knock him out, put make-up on him, dump him in a gay bar, and then Clorie tells him off over the phone.

Oh yeah, that's a likely scenario. Let's hope no abused women get the impression that all it takes is a bunch of friends make fun of their abuser to be left alone for life.

Of course there's the boringly predictable side story of Nora's hair product line which doesn't work but, with the help of Clorie gets improved and becomes a hit.

The only unique thing about this blatant Barbershop rip-off is that Nora's product line becomes successful after she dies from heart failure. (Don't worry, in a film as predictable as this one, there's nothing that could possibly be "given away".)

The close friendship between Nora and her Korean manicurist Ming (Lucille Soong) is a nice touch, but not enough to make the film worthwhile.

Oh yeah ... then there's Bobby Brown. I can't possibly remember which part he played, though. It's been a while since Bobby Brown was at least famous enough to be recognized. Matter of fact, last time I saw Bobby Brown was on some entertainment program, outside court, asking into the camera if anybody would give him a job. Well, someone did, in this film. He probably played the woman-beating pimp, it'd be a good part for him.

Overall, Nora's Hair Salon is cute and okay to watch if you want some sappy Barbershop rip-off, but it's not particularly impressive with its formula writing, drag queen overacting and predictability.

Recommended: No

Viewing Format: VHS