Top Five - This Movie Is Actually Funny? Awesome.

It is rather hard to say whether or not Chris Rock has had a good career in film, yet there was always this assumption that Rock was a funny person, either from his days as a comedian, his stint on Saturday Night Live, or when he got his own show. I find him to be funny in things like that although aside from a few roles in movies, that humor never really translated. I can never say that I have seen all that much to judge him wholeheartedly, I have enjoyed some of his roles, such as Rufus in Dogma or as JB/Daddy Tang in Pootie Tang, but there are also things like the Grown Ups movies which I don't like at all for being such as black hole of talent or as mentioned from the Penguins of Madagascar review, that series is not something I really like to watch regularly. There was also the unnecessary remake of Death at a Funeral, the original being one of my favorite movies. So it can be said that lately his film career has not been that good, although maybe financially successful. So when trailers for this movie came out, I was kind of intrigued but also cautious due to said track record. Then one of the internet reviews I trust a lot gave it a good review and some others have said good things about it so I thought I'd give it a watch. And what I got could easily be one of the best things that Chris Rock has done in his career so far.

Top Five, which was also written and directed by Rock, follows a day in the life of Andre Allen, a former comedian turned comedy film star who has to juggle many things going on all the while being followed by a reporter almost the entire time, who he begins to open up to about his life. The two of them do start to develop a sort of a connection with one another over the course of the film yet it never devolves into a romantic comedy which I rather liked and I'm glad for. That said, the chemistry between Rock and Chelsea Brown, played by Rosario Dawson, is really good as they are able to switch from the comedic moments to the more serious beats of the story in a rather believable way. The rest of the cast comes in and out, mainly just appearing in a few scenes before fading away, such as Kevin Hart's character as Allen's agent whom I thought would have been more prominent in the film which did kind of make me worry. Not because I don't like him (I don't have enough of a gauge of that to really say) but more due to the prominence he has had in comedic films over the past few years I though it would be overexposure. His time in the movie was funny though, I'll give him that. The only character who does appear in the film a significant amount of time other than the leads would be Silk, Andre's assistant played by JB Smoove, who does get some laughs in the movie. 

A prominent source of jokes in the film comes from the movie that Andre is promoting called Uprize, his first attempt at more serious work where he plays a prominent member of the Haitian slave revolution. Part of it is poking fun at how miscast Allen appears to be in the movie, where the best way to describe it is to pretend that Chris Rock was cast in the lead of Django Unchained and you can get how miscast he would be in that. A sight gag I found funny was that at one of the promotions there was a pamphlet called the Uprize Fitness Kit but I might be one of the few who gets a laugh at that. I should also give some credit for the movie not giving away all of the good jokes in the trailer, at least the one that I saw being the case since there were a lot that were really good. My favorite though might be during Andre's bachelor party where there is a cameo by Jerry Seinfeld and saying too much might ruin it but if the prospect of seeing Seinfeld "makin' it rain" sounds funny to you, then this movie is for you. If you're hesitant about this movie, I'd say give it a chance since it is easily one of the best things Chris Rock has done in years and hopefully it'll be a better movie than you expect it to be. 

Epilogue: I did consider calling this a more conventional version of Birdman since there are some similar themes in it but I was unsure whether or not that is true.