Chris Knipp
12-13-2014, 02:19 AM
Chris Rock: Top Five (2014)
http://www.chrisknipp.com/newpictures/t5.jpg
CHRIS ROCK AND ROSARIO DAWSON IN TOP FIVE
Chris Rock attempts a breakthrough comedy feature about a comic trying to be serious
Chris Rock till now has had a less than stellar record as a writer-director-star of feature films -- his bland 2003 political comedy, Head of State (Metacritic 44) was followed by a defanged and needless 2007 retread of Eric Rohmer's Chloe in the Afternoon, I Think I Love My Wife (Metacritic 49). With his third and current effort, the self-reflective Top Five, Rock seeks to become a real contender. Like the autobiographical character he plays, he strives to remain funny and yet excel at serious work while going beyond merely doing standup, writing comedy, and appearing in other people's movies. None too soon for solid accomplishment, you might say, since Rock turns 50 in two months, though this seems less an issue given how young he still looks and how brightly his smile still gleams.
Top Five works hard to be both hilarious and an intense comment on fame and celebrity. Certainly it is a step forward, more exciting and thoughtful and its main character more present and in-your-face (through there remains something understated and throw-away about Rock). Are the raves really justified, the Metacritic rating that's practically doubled to 83%? Like the celebrity world it satirizes, Top Five seems a mix of success and hype. For all its richness of detail and fine Manhattan scenes enhanced by Lars von Trier cinematographer Manuel Alberto Claro, Top Five may fall short of making all its points, or even altogether finding out what it wants to say. Sometimes that gleaming smile may blunt the satire.
With its peripatetic conversational rambles through New York City, Rock's movie alludes to Woody Allen's Stardust Memories, which itself piggy-backed a bit on Fellini's 8½. All the focus is on Andre Allen, the big star Rock plays, who's about to be married to his media-exploiting, greedy and untalented fiancee Erica (Gabrielle Union), a gold digger who's removing any chance for privacy or authenticity by making their relationship and wedding part of her Bravo series reality show. The movie's default format is the interview. Early on we see Andre on stage being questioned by Charlie Rose -- signaling his A-List status, when he announces he doesn't feel funny anymore. Most of the time wherever he goes he's submitting, with an improbable degree of instant openness, to a running interview-cum-flirtation with a New York Times reporter called Chelsea Brown. As Chelsea Rosario Dawson, fine here, is classy and attractive, a clear contrast with the selfish, tacky Erica, but the Chelsea-Andre flirtation, however warm, lacks the intended sexual chemistry.
Andre wants to do something serious insterad of the Hammy the Bear trilogy of Hollywood movies that has made him famous. But his effort at a new direction is a misconceived historical movie called Uprize! about the Haitian slave revolt that is a failure now showing in a meager sprinkling of empty theaters. Top Five crackles with the over-the-top vividness of its comic set pieces alternating with intense one-on-one closeups of conversation and flirting. The comic's edgy push to succeed is ever-present. Eventhe title implies a challenge: who's the best? Name the top five! The movie percolates with hipness with its amusing topical references to Obama, Tyer Perry, hailing a cab in New York while black, and Planet of the Apes' racial implications, and it finds time to be gross, and chide white people for their discomfort with the N-word, which gets some liberal usage (as it always has in Chris Rock's standup routines).
The complex past of Andre Allen -- the Fellini part -- is the alcoholism he seeks to put behind him. He tells Chelsea about his alcoholic bottom: the ribald, gross, overlong sequence about himself in Houston with a foul-mouthed low rent agent or fixer called Jazzy Dee (Cedric the Entertainer) and two prostitutes in a mediocre hotel suite. This episode has a followup in the present, when Andre, giving in to stress and temptation, has a brief but spectacular relapse. He gets drunk in a supermarket and causes pandemonium, ending up briefly in jail, which his handlers try to cover up by claiming it's merely a charade staged to promote his latest show.
The embarrassment of being in the public eye is shown when a fan wants to take a picture of Andre while he's drunk and about to explode at the supermarket checkout stand. "Not this time," he pleads. He talks a lot to Chelsea about his adherence to the 12-step recovery principle of "rigorous honesty." She says she's in recovery too, but it turns out she is concealing something else important about herself while prying into the facts of his life in her interview. There is also stuff about Chelsea's home life, paralleling Andre's own humble Bed-Sty background, which they revisit. There is the irony that after his relapse, Erica and his publicity handlers force the alcoholic Andre to go to a big party, where he meets up with Adam Sandler, Jerry Seinfeld, and Whoopy Goldberg. They aren't used very pointedly: celebrity trumps plot.
Finally there is a brief appearance at The Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village where Andre surprises himself by triumphing, making everybody laugh when he had thought he was off his game and out of practice. Is what he says so funny, or just provocative because he talks about dating using the F-word? Anyway this is an opportunity afterward to talk about the sheer high of succeeding at standup and this is probably the point.
But what does it all mean? Top Five is a big question mark. Which of course is fine. It just doesn't have the resonance or angst Allen or Fellini would give it. The rest is just the accoutrements of success, like the omnipresent chauffeured car and the overprotective bodyguard/handler/friend Silk (J.B. Smoove), plus the distasteful glitz of Andre's burdensome, invasive publicity-life as embodied in Erica.
Top Five is a tumultuous hybrid that holds your attention but doesn't altogether jell, not quite standup, not quite drama, not quite commentary, but a little of each. It's a breakthrough for Rock but not for comedy filmmaking. Rock still lacks the creative genius of his idol Woody Allen and the verbal wit and intelligence and outrageousness of somebody like Russell Brand. He doesn't have ideas as Brand now does. Maybe that's why in this movie his character is thinking so much about celebrity and stardom, instead of just embodying and moving beyond them.
Top Five, 102 mins., debuted at Toronto and opened in the US and Canada 12 December 2014, UK 20 March 2015.
http://www.chrisknipp.com/newpictures/t5.jpg
CHRIS ROCK AND ROSARIO DAWSON IN TOP FIVE
Chris Rock attempts a breakthrough comedy feature about a comic trying to be serious
Chris Rock till now has had a less than stellar record as a writer-director-star of feature films -- his bland 2003 political comedy, Head of State (Metacritic 44) was followed by a defanged and needless 2007 retread of Eric Rohmer's Chloe in the Afternoon, I Think I Love My Wife (Metacritic 49). With his third and current effort, the self-reflective Top Five, Rock seeks to become a real contender. Like the autobiographical character he plays, he strives to remain funny and yet excel at serious work while going beyond merely doing standup, writing comedy, and appearing in other people's movies. None too soon for solid accomplishment, you might say, since Rock turns 50 in two months, though this seems less an issue given how young he still looks and how brightly his smile still gleams.
Top Five works hard to be both hilarious and an intense comment on fame and celebrity. Certainly it is a step forward, more exciting and thoughtful and its main character more present and in-your-face (through there remains something understated and throw-away about Rock). Are the raves really justified, the Metacritic rating that's practically doubled to 83%? Like the celebrity world it satirizes, Top Five seems a mix of success and hype. For all its richness of detail and fine Manhattan scenes enhanced by Lars von Trier cinematographer Manuel Alberto Claro, Top Five may fall short of making all its points, or even altogether finding out what it wants to say. Sometimes that gleaming smile may blunt the satire.
With its peripatetic conversational rambles through New York City, Rock's movie alludes to Woody Allen's Stardust Memories, which itself piggy-backed a bit on Fellini's 8½. All the focus is on Andre Allen, the big star Rock plays, who's about to be married to his media-exploiting, greedy and untalented fiancee Erica (Gabrielle Union), a gold digger who's removing any chance for privacy or authenticity by making their relationship and wedding part of her Bravo series reality show. The movie's default format is the interview. Early on we see Andre on stage being questioned by Charlie Rose -- signaling his A-List status, when he announces he doesn't feel funny anymore. Most of the time wherever he goes he's submitting, with an improbable degree of instant openness, to a running interview-cum-flirtation with a New York Times reporter called Chelsea Brown. As Chelsea Rosario Dawson, fine here, is classy and attractive, a clear contrast with the selfish, tacky Erica, but the Chelsea-Andre flirtation, however warm, lacks the intended sexual chemistry.
Andre wants to do something serious insterad of the Hammy the Bear trilogy of Hollywood movies that has made him famous. But his effort at a new direction is a misconceived historical movie called Uprize! about the Haitian slave revolt that is a failure now showing in a meager sprinkling of empty theaters. Top Five crackles with the over-the-top vividness of its comic set pieces alternating with intense one-on-one closeups of conversation and flirting. The comic's edgy push to succeed is ever-present. Eventhe title implies a challenge: who's the best? Name the top five! The movie percolates with hipness with its amusing topical references to Obama, Tyer Perry, hailing a cab in New York while black, and Planet of the Apes' racial implications, and it finds time to be gross, and chide white people for their discomfort with the N-word, which gets some liberal usage (as it always has in Chris Rock's standup routines).
The complex past of Andre Allen -- the Fellini part -- is the alcoholism he seeks to put behind him. He tells Chelsea about his alcoholic bottom: the ribald, gross, overlong sequence about himself in Houston with a foul-mouthed low rent agent or fixer called Jazzy Dee (Cedric the Entertainer) and two prostitutes in a mediocre hotel suite. This episode has a followup in the present, when Andre, giving in to stress and temptation, has a brief but spectacular relapse. He gets drunk in a supermarket and causes pandemonium, ending up briefly in jail, which his handlers try to cover up by claiming it's merely a charade staged to promote his latest show.
The embarrassment of being in the public eye is shown when a fan wants to take a picture of Andre while he's drunk and about to explode at the supermarket checkout stand. "Not this time," he pleads. He talks a lot to Chelsea about his adherence to the 12-step recovery principle of "rigorous honesty." She says she's in recovery too, but it turns out she is concealing something else important about herself while prying into the facts of his life in her interview. There is also stuff about Chelsea's home life, paralleling Andre's own humble Bed-Sty background, which they revisit. There is the irony that after his relapse, Erica and his publicity handlers force the alcoholic Andre to go to a big party, where he meets up with Adam Sandler, Jerry Seinfeld, and Whoopy Goldberg. They aren't used very pointedly: celebrity trumps plot.
Finally there is a brief appearance at The Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village where Andre surprises himself by triumphing, making everybody laugh when he had thought he was off his game and out of practice. Is what he says so funny, or just provocative because he talks about dating using the F-word? Anyway this is an opportunity afterward to talk about the sheer high of succeeding at standup and this is probably the point.
But what does it all mean? Top Five is a big question mark. Which of course is fine. It just doesn't have the resonance or angst Allen or Fellini would give it. The rest is just the accoutrements of success, like the omnipresent chauffeured car and the overprotective bodyguard/handler/friend Silk (J.B. Smoove), plus the distasteful glitz of Andre's burdensome, invasive publicity-life as embodied in Erica.
Top Five is a tumultuous hybrid that holds your attention but doesn't altogether jell, not quite standup, not quite drama, not quite commentary, but a little of each. It's a breakthrough for Rock but not for comedy filmmaking. Rock still lacks the creative genius of his idol Woody Allen and the verbal wit and intelligence and outrageousness of somebody like Russell Brand. He doesn't have ideas as Brand now does. Maybe that's why in this movie his character is thinking so much about celebrity and stardom, instead of just embodying and moving beyond them.
Top Five, 102 mins., debuted at Toronto and opened in the US and Canada 12 December 2014, UK 20 March 2015.