Official Australian release date: 12/3/15. Viewed: 13/3/15.
Director: Chris Rock
Actors: Chris Rock, Rosario Dawson, JB Smoove, Gabrielle Union
Genre: Comedy
Rating: MA
‘Top
Five’ is Chris Rock’s third directorial effort – and it is better than ‘Head of
State’! I love Rock as a stand-up comedian, but I feel like he still hasn’t
quite got it all together in terms of acting/directing. This is by no means a
bad film – it’s just not his, or anyone involved, best work. It’s
partially-autobiographical: comedian turns actor, cashes in on simple
family-friendly films, gets pigeon-holed, tries to branch out into ‘serious’
films, flops. In reality, it’s almost an Eddie Murphy biopic – hugely successful
comedian, drug/alcohol issues, simple family-friendly films (‘The Nutty
Professor’, ‘Doctor Dolittle’, ‘Shrek’), then ‘serious’ films (‘Dreamgirls’, ‘A
Thousand Words’).
Andre
(Rock) starts off as an unlikeable, self-obsessed celebrity, engaged to an even
more unlikable reality-TV “star” (Union), but is interviewed by Chelsea (Dawson)
for an article and lets his guard down. The two of them conversing are some of
the better scenes, as Dawson is such a great disarming actress – impossible to
not love. You get some (hopefully not based too much on reality) anecdotes and
a few funny moments. There’s room for plenty of good actors/friends-of-Rock’s –
Smoove, Tracy Morgan, Cedric the Entertainer, Romany Malco, Kevin Hart, Adam
Sandler & Jerry Seinfeld – but none of them get enough time to do anything
too funny/great.
The eponymous “top five” is the
question Rock asks others to see who their favourite rappers are – purportedly to
‘test’ their credibility. I wish Rock has focussed a little more on his top
five attributes – being funny, multiplied by five! The film has a decent
romantic angle and a good ending, but it not great, nor poor.
Overall: Adequate “com”, with some “rom”.
Gav's Rating: 3 stars.
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