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| Chris Rock and Rosario Dawson in Top Five |
Rock is easily the best stand-up comic of his generation, an art that has sadly been diminished in the last few decades.
When he was at his peak, there was no one funnier or more incisive in American comedy than Rock, but when he went into movies -- which was inevitable -- he almost never delivered on his promise.
Part of the problem was Rock himself. He was never believable playing a character, because he wasn't a natural actor -- and he still isn't. But Top Five gives him his most effective screen presence to date because like his idol Woody Allen, he's cast himself as essentially an exaggerated version of himself.
In fact, Top Five very closely resembles Allen's own 1980 film Stardust Memories, in which he plays an accomplished comedy filmmaker trying to be taken more seriously by his fans.Rock and his on-screen alter ego have a similar dilemma. He sold out long ago playing an absurd character called "Hammy the Bear" and is stuck in an unfulfilling relationship with a reality TV star (a surprisingly good Gabrielle Union).
The frame of the film is that Rock's character is being profiled by a New York Times reporter (a radiant Rosario Dawson) who is trying to find out why the ex-alcoholic comedian lost his way. Amid their byplay, Rock's character is promoting his first attempt at a drama film, a Haitian slave rebellion epic called Uprise.
There's a lot going on there, and the movie often trips over its own ambitions. Some of the material is fairly sexist or uncomfortably crude -- but much of it is also raw and revealingly honest, which is refreshing. Chris Rock isn't trying to be safe or likable in this film and he isn't ceding the spotlight to someone who isn't as clever as he is like Adam Sandler (although his ex-SNL co-star does have a very amusing cameo).
The movie is teeming with his passions -- for hip-hop, for comedy of the past and present, for sex and relationships. And it feels like the first time he's ever gotten personal on-screen.
That said, the film's flaws are plentiful. As lovable as she is, Dawson may be the most unrealistic and unprofessional journalist I've ever seen in a film. A scene of police brutality may have been intended for laughs -- I'm not sure -- but it reads as unpleasant in the wake of Eric Garner. The movie can occasionally be grating -- Rock hasn't found a consistent style or rhythm as a director. And yet, it has some very big laughs in it. And unlike most of the comedies this year it doesn't feel like a product that was hatched in a studio boardroom.
There's a cameo late in the film that I won't spoil -- but I will say that it's one of the funniest I've seen in years, and it involves a celebrity giving Rock's character props for being uncompromising. It could read as indulgent, as could much of the film -- but it actually works in Top Five because the movie is not a vanity project, it feels like a mea culpa to Chris Rock fans who miss his past no-holds-barred truth telling and also an opening salvo for a new stage of his career as both a filmmaker a performer.
There is much to love about Top Five, as a hip-hop fan, as a New Yorker and as a historian of black comedy. It may be a little messy at times -- the alcoholic subplot is not entirely convincing -- but it's full of ribald energy and memorable zingers. There are hilarious moments from Rock's crew of comedic friends from Jerry Seinfeld to Tracy Morgan and observations that only Rock could make -- like how the original Planet of the Apes may have inspired James Earl Ray to kill Martin Luther King.
The movie is also taking a side against Tyler Perry movies and the rest of what passes for black comedy these days. I have no idea if it'll be a success at the box office, but I'm grateful that Rock made it and I hope he's got the guts to go deeper.
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