Just watched this on Netflix Streaming. John Henry Brooks (Leonard Jackson) is the patriarch of the family that includes wife Gladys (Clarice Taylor), and his grown children-Gail (Bonnie Banfield), Preston (Glynn Turman), and Booker T. (D'Urville Martin) though he prefers to be called Sharif. In a nutshell: Gladys is tired of her husband's treatment of her and vows to leave him to her friends Ruby (Virginia Capers) and Stormy Monday (Ja'net DuBois), Preston is in touch with his African roots, so is Gail who's about to marry Marvin (Carl Franklin) while Booker T...oops, I mean Sharif, gets hassled by his brother about dating white women. Most of what I just mentioned happens while John Henry is at the barbershop he owns cutting the breeze with his co-horts like Sweetmeat (Sonny Jim Gains) and male only customers which we're reminded of whenever a female tries to enter. I'll stop there and just say this was quite a refreshing change of pace compared to the mostly blaxploitation pics I watched the last several days. And while the characters seem mostly certain types, there's enough humor and love that one associates with them immediately. So on that note, I recommend Five on the Black Hand Side. P.S. Player Dick Anthony Williams-who's Preston here-is someone I was first familiar with when he played servant Abe Davis on "Homefront" some 20 years ago. I also just watched him in The Mack as Pretty Tony. He's a native of my birthtown of Chicago, Ill. Another one I just watched was D'Urville Martin in The Legend of N!gger Charlie. Virginia Capers was born in Jacksonville, Fla. which was where I once lived from 1987-2003. And I recognized Ms. DuBois from when she was Willona Woods on "Good Times" which she would portray a year after this movie. She's also recognizable to me as the singer of "Movin' On Up" theme of "The Jeffersons" of which Leonard Jackson once played Louise's father. And Ms. Taylor would eventually portray Cliff Huxtable's mother on "The Cosby Show"