Top Five

Overview

In his third motion picture as writer/director/star, comedian Chris Rock is the funniest he’s been in years. But then again, that’s not saying much. While comedy fiends will always remember Rock for his fearless, foul mouthed stand-up routines, his movie career — particularly in recent times — has smacked of safer choices. Madagascar and Grown-Ups are hardly the best outlets for one of the greatest living comedians to work his magic — which is a big part of why Top Five feels like such a pleasant surprise.

A smart, self-effacing send-up of the entertainment industry, the film, like most of Rock’s best material, feels at least partly autobiographical. Rock plays Andre Allen, a comedian turned Hollywood superstar and recovering alcoholic, best known for his role in the million-dollar Hammy the Bear franchise. Unfortunately, Allen’s funny bone has been blunted since going sober, and his first attempt at a ‘serious’ film — playing Haitian slave revolutionary Dutty Boukman — is shaping up to be a box-office bomb. Even more out of control is his upcoming televised wedding, to Kardashian-esque reality star Erica Long (Gabrielle Union).

Enter Chelsea Brown (Rosario Dawson), a sardonic, whip-smart writer for the New York Times, who’s been assigned to profile Allen over the course of a single day. Although initially suspicious of Brown and the Times, whose resident film critic has made a career out of tearing his movies to shreds, Allen soon finds himself opening up to the writer, as the pair begin to trade stories while walking around NYC.

In a lot of ways, Top Five feels like the work of an artist finally free to speak in his own voice. From Allen laying out his theory about the racist undertones of Planet of the Apes to debating his agent (Kevin Hart) about whether a black man can get fired for using the N-word, the writing here feels like vintage Rock: free-flowing, profane and absolutely hilarious. He also manages to insert two of the most gleefully obscene on-screen sex acts this side of Nymphomaniac. Without going into details, let’s just say you’ll never be able to look at a bottle of chilli sauce the same way again.

Dawson makes for a worthy comic counterpart, the playfully antagonistic chemistry between her and her director/co-star helping keep the film on track. Beyond this central pairing, Rock stacks the deck with a ton of famous faces, from Tracy Morgan to DMX. The highlight, though, is at Allen’s ribald bachelor party, where he receives marital advice from Jerry Seinfeld, Whoopi Goldberg and Adam Sandler. Frankly, the site of a balding Seinfeld making it rain is worth the price of admission alone.

If we have any complaint of Top Five, it would be a lack of internal structure; in a lot of ways the film feels more like a collection of scenes than it does a cohesive whole. Still, when they’re all this damn funny, it’s sort of difficult to object. Where Rock’s career goes from here is anyone’s guess. Regardless, it’s nice to have this reminder of just how good he can be.