Top Five

Top Five isn't the best comedy I've seen in recent years, and it is largely forgettable throughout, but it is definitely a breath of fresh air in a movie genre that has, in recent years, become flooded with loud, obnoxious, and expensive blockbusters that try much too hard at being funny and end up only genuinely being funny for enough scenes to fill up the time for its preview. Or even worse, they go on to turn the movie into sequels or trilogies only to repeat the same basic plot with a few new characters for the sole purpose of making money, instead of making a quality film.

Top Five is a relatively mature and intelligent comedy throughout, that ends leaving the viewer satisfied, and for some wanting more but still content with it being the conclusion to this particular story and set of characters. I don't normally review movies on IMDb, but due to the irony of some of the cruel and unnecessarily critical reviews of this movie given by a decent amount of users that I read, after watching a movie that spends time shining light on the effects words have on people, no matter how famous, rich, or happy they are/appear to be.

This movie is by no means Chris Rock's masterpiece, but it is an intelligently crafted, and entertaining film that doesn't deserve to be given any less than a 5 rating. The 7 rating I gave it is largely due to the fact that I enjoy Chris Rock's comedy and he showed me in this film that he hasn't lost a bit of talent since his first big break. It's not a movie I would go see in theaters, but if it pops up for streaming on Netflix, its worth a watch for sure.

Eight stars while Rosario Dawson's on screen, otherwise six. Chris Rock is Andre Allen, a successful standup comic who's arrived at his "Stardust Memories" moment—he's done a couple of dumb action comedies about a crime-fighting bear and wants to redeem himself with a serious film about Haitian slave rebels that nobody wants to see. Some of the plot mechanics are a little creaky, some of the comic set pieces are just distracting (especially the gross-out foursome with Cedric and the topheavy hookers), but the two leads have great chemistry, and the scenes with the two of them just "wandering around bullshitting" (as Ethan Hawke says in "Before Midnight") are totally engaging.

The comedy sideshow stuff is hit or miss. An extended sequence with Tracy Morgan, Leslie Jones et al. as Andre's old cronies from the 'hood—maybe meant to illustrate Chris Rock's claim that he was only the tenth funniest guy on his block—mostly hits; the shtick with J.B. Smoove coming on to every plus-size woman he meets mostly misses (except when Gabourey Sidibe tells him to knock it off...). Romcom convention dictates that the two leads have a falling out that keeps Rosario out of the picture for a while, which requires a nonsensical plot twist and results in a few flat scenes near the end, but all in all it's an entertaining film.

Maybe the example of Louis CK has encouraged Chris Rock to base his character more on his own life, instead of playing, e.g., a dweeby investment banker ("I Think I Love My Wife"); as with "Louie," the NYC locations are a big part of the story. He claims that this is the "blackest" film he's made so far, but I have to say that a standup guy from Bed-Stuy who remakes an Eric Rohmer classic ("My Wife"), costars with Julie Delpy ("Two Days in New York") in a film set in Tribeca and steals from Preston Sturgess and Woody Allen is my kind of postracial auteur.

I knew he could do it,

And what's cool is that he shows some depth I knew he was capable of, but never saw him do. I think CB4 was the last funny Chris Rock move, and that's saying something, cause it was not really that funny.

But finally, Chris Rock writes, directs, and producers his own star vehicle that fully lives up to the comedy spectacular that is Chris Rock.

He gets it right with a satire about being a funny man, turned actor who after finding success, fears going back to comedy because he's fears not being funny, but finds a spark in a Times writer who follows him around all day to get to know the man behind the fame.

Although, a lot of the movie is a cliché you seen plenty of times in the past, it's heighten by the fact that the filmmaker is Rock himself who's not afraid to share the comedy spotlight with his friends who make funny appearances. From the always funny Kevin Hart who held it down, to Cedric the Entertainer whose funny moment in the trailer was just a small part of his overall funny cameo, plus a few other hilarious cameos from his friends I would not want to spoil.

Overall, it was Rock's best moment on the big screen.

I am sooooo not in the audience for a Chris Rock film--or so I would have thought. I'm white, in my 60's, liberal but not urban or indeed hip in any sense, and the only five rap artists I could name are those who went on to acting careers.

And yet...this was a definitely movie for me. It's observational, mature, witty, good-hearted, mostly a rom-com but also about the battle between external expectations and inner desire, young adulthood and maturity.

The plot of the movie, which has everyone but a few good friends wanting poor Andre to keep doing his funny stuff, the talking bear movies, while he wants to do more significant work? That ends up perfectly predicting the audience reaction you see here via the reviews. "Where's the hysterical Chris Rock **** jokes?" people stuck in 1992 want to know.

There is some of that in here...and it's exactly the stuff I hated (Cedric and the whores; the tampon thing--ish, edit them both out) and that made me rate this a couple stars lower than I might have otherwise. So as I pity Andre in the film (omg, having "Hammy!" shouted at you 1000 times day!), I pity Rock even more for living out this life, even in the year since this movie's release, even right here on IMDb, with angry comments by old-school fans of his. Man, that's life imitating art imitating life.

I hope I see more like this from him.

I enjoy that I was able to like all these characters and sympathize with them. I liked the set up for the reveal about Chelsea. I liked how Silk was a stock character you thought you knew, until he wasn't in the final 1/4 of the film. I was tickled. I was moved. I was pressed to think.

(and I did sort of like the rap song running over the end credits, so one never knows, eh?)

Clearly a personal project for writer/director/star Chris Rock, Top Five isn't quite a comedy and isn't quite a drama. It nestles snugly, firmly into the in-between, dispensing funny little slices of life alongside serious, self-searching notes about midlife insecurity and the desire to make something more of yourself. Rock basically plays himself, a longtime comedy superstar who worries that his silly wide-appeal earlier works have trapped him in a vicious cycle of self-loathing and alcoholism. His character is grounded and real, afraid to play anything for big laughs because the pressure to meet earlier comedy heights is so crippling. For the most part, it's the story of his swift rapport and burgeoning relationship with a tailing New York Times reporter (Rosario Dawson), which clicks on all cylinders. The two work so well together, it can be enjoyable just watching them interact over the inconsequential, and that's the real draw. Don't go in expecting riotous laughs; it's funny, but also sweet, and an effective stepping stone to broader subjects.