Review of Top Five (2014) by Mike C — 06 Jun 2015

I coincidentally saw this the same weekend I saw "Entourage", so my thoughts are going to be painted by my thoughts on that other film. Both films are essentially about how hard it is to be a celebrity. Whether we, the common people, can relate to that or not is up to the viewer. Personally, both movies flow without much of a story. These are people talking and moving casually. In "Top Five" it can feel like jazz which scores some of the film. "Top Five" goes into darker territory by focusing on the inner battle with sobriety, but I personally was disappointed by the resolution of this story. After focusing on alcoholism for much of the movie, there's not much guilt or punishment for slipping which marred the whole subplot for me.

The best thing about the film is far and away Rosario Dawson. She is so insanely natural it's captivating. She doesn't seem to be reciting lines, they come up naturally and realistically. Chris Rock is also good as his character, but he is surrounded by other famous people that it's hard to not take him as Chris Rock instead of this other character. As such, I couldn't really get lost into the film or accept Dre as a character unto himself.

As a comedy, much like "Entourage", this film isn't really funny. It's selling points is you get to hang out with some cool (or horrible) people for a couple hours. There will be no climax, no third act ticking clock, it'll just end. And you'll either be happy or feel like this wasn't a movie.

It should also be stated that the issue of race is never mentioned in "Entourage", a predominantly caucasian cast film. Race absolutely is a topic and subject in this film. This distinction is worth a discussion onto itself. But maybe I'll blog about that another day.

Unrelated to the film, Scott Rudin was a producer of this film and he got email hacked at Sony last year. He had some racially insensitive emails exposed - and even knowing that - it didn't effect this film at all for me. Producers are invisible. That this was one of three movies he produced that year I think says something that seemed worth putting here too.