Top Five (2014)
Directed by Chris Rock
Though he began in stand-up comedy, Andre Allen hit the big-time as the star of a trilogy of action-comedies about a talking bear but now he wants to be taken seriously. His passion project about the Haitian Revolution, a movie called Uprize, was panned by the NY Times film critic. A couple days before the wedding to his reality star fiancée, he's forced to spend the day with Chelsea Brown, a profile writer for the New York Times. Unexpectedly, he opens up to her, and as they wind their way across New York, he tries to get back in touch with his comedic roots.
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3 films that influenced Top Five
What critics say influenced Top Five
At the very least, it’s his “Before Sunrise.”
This movie is Kanye West, Eddie Murphy, and the Tracy Morgan of 30 Rock on the one hand, and Before Sunrise on the other.
Clearly inspired by such Woody Allen classics as “ Stardust Memories ,” as well as the “Before Sunrise” trilogy starring Julie Delpy (in whose charming romantic comedy “ 2 Days in New York ” he co-starred), Rock seems clearly to have found his groove after the directorial missteps “ Head of State ” and “ I Think I Love My Wife .”
In essence, Rock has made his version of Richard Linklater's "Before Sunrise" series by way of the humorous self-reflection found on "Louie," scripting a tale of midlife crisis discussed in detail by a man and woman as they roam around over the course of a single day.
…reminiscent of Linklater’s Before Sunrise , the film allows the couple the chance to argue and joke about politics (Obama is actually half black and half white, insists Rock) and race (the original Planet of the Apes movie actually contributed to the assassination of Martin Luther King, hypothesises Rock).
An extended “Before Sunset”-esque walk-and-talk through the streets of New York City has the pair holding forth on a series of topics that will be familiar to those who have read his writing or seen his stand-up: Race, fame, hip-hop, Obama, Tyler Perry, the media, et al.
Among those topics: the celebrity obsession of the current popular culture, the exaggeration of the mass media, the difficulty to keep clean from past demons, the racism of Planet of the Apes.
But mostly the movie has Rock showing the strength of his observational-comedy chops as he and Dawson walk around New York, riffing on their favorite comics and the racial overtones in Planet of the Apes.
Their extended walk-and-talk ranges from their shared experience as recovering alchoholics to Andre's crackpot theory that James Earl Ray was driven to kill Martin Luther King by seeing Planet of the Apes.
Doing the voice for an antic zebra named Marty in the "Madagascar" cartoons brought him a lot of money; he also showed up in the two "Grown Ups" movies.
Just when you were ready to dismiss Grown Ups 2 as a cinematic black hole, Chris Rock goes ahead and gives the Adam Sandler atrocity proper credit for inspiring his latest, hysterically funny comedy Top Five.
Chris Rock isn't exactly a stranger to the big screen, having administered comic relief in such films as "Beverly Hills Cop 2" and "Lethal Weapon 4" to the "Grown Ups" and "Madagascar" movies.
In many of the films Rock has starred in— and he has starred in a number of them— he’s often been relegated to a supporting role unworthy of his time (Grown Ups and What to Expect When You’re Expecting come to mind).
On the rare occasions when he has starred in a fully fledged success, it has been either someone else’s (Adam Sandler’s unfathomably popular Grown Ups comedies) or one in which he is hidden from view (the animated Madagascar films).
Rock has specialized in movies that don’t matter, whether from his own hand or in fluff like the Grown Ups movies or the Madagascar trilogy.