Top Five

Chris Rock's latest directorial effort Top Five is a sort of self-analysis on the part of Rock looking back at his own career and the choices that he has made. While it does not perhaps overtly cover every aspect Rock's career, there are enough parallels to be drawn.

Andre Allen (Rock) is a former stand up comedian who made the leap to acting and made himself a star by starring in a buddy cop franchise as a talking bear cop. He returns to his hometown of New York to promote his latest more serious film Uprize, where he plays the leader of the biggest slave rebellion to ever happen. He is due to marry reality TV star Erica Long (Gabrielle Union) in a big televised spectacle, but first has to partake in his equally televised and scripted bachelor party. In the day leading up to the party, he is joined by New York Times reporter Chelsea Brown (Rosario Dawson) who is going to follow him around and do a profile piece about his career.

Top Five is a tough movie to crack. It doesn't really fit into any genre (comedy or drama) so you're not sure if you should be laughing at any antics. It does seem to be a personal film for Rock, as his character is struggling with fame, sobriety and falling out of love with the thing that made him famous in the first place; comedy, but it didn't really reach out to me, as I'm not struggling with being super famous. I will give the film some props for boldly looking at the structure of reality TV in a negative light.

The movie is also centred two rather large flashback centrepieces that I have trouble placing in the overall story. One is of Andre's story of when he knew he'd hit rock bottom with his drinking problem. It is set ten years earlier and is when he is on a tour in Houston and ends up sleeping with some hookers at the insistence of his contact there, Jazzy Dee (Cedric the Entertainer). The other story is from Chelsea Brown about how she comes finally to the conclusion that her boyfriend Brad (Anders Holm) is gay, due to an incident involving a tampon covered in hot sauce. These stories both have fun little jokes and do serve in creating a bond between Andre and Chelsea, but also disrupt the flow of the timeframe of the movie.

Both Chris Rock and Rosario Dawson are very good in this movie, although Dawson is slightly better (that's understandable given that Rock also wrote and directed the movie) and they both have excellent chemistry. It is the supporting cast that is more fun to watch. JB Smoove plays Andre's bodyguard and delivers some of the more poignant messages in the movie. Cedric the Entertainer is incredibly creepy as Jazzy Dee, but his character is particularly funny. Both Tracy Morgan and Jay Pharoah are exceptional as childhood friends of Andre and Adam Sandler, Whoopi Goldberg and Jerry Seinfeld all make cameos at Andre's bachelor party.

Whilst this film does have some structural problems, it is very fun. Rock is still finding his footing as a director, but conveys his message well. There are some incredibly rewarding moments in the film that happen toward the end that really tie up the character arcs well.