Review of Top Five (2014) by Jefferson N — 12 Jan 2015

In "Top Five," Andre Allen(Chris Rock, who also wrote and directed) is getting married to Erica(gabrielle Union). The catch is that this is part of her reality program. In the meantime, he is doing promotional work for a movie he just made about the life of a Haitian freedom fighter which is a departure from his usual comedic work. As part of which, he agrees to a profile for the New York Times by Chelsea Brown(Rosario Dawson), even though he has issues and a deep running feud with one of the newspaper's other writers.

As uneven as it is, "Top Five(or Chris Rock's 8 1/2)" contains a neat smart, little movie at its heart that has lots to say about celebrity. That's the part that is the walk and talk between Andre and Chelsea that also makes great use of New York City locations. But since this is not exactly a commercial approach and maybe not to the liking of some of Rock's fans, he takes a different path from his fictional counterpart by inserting some comic interludes for them to enjoy. So, while the visit to Andre's family definitely works on more than one level, other comic bits do not(Houston, Cinderella, hot sauce), even displaying a sexual politics that while not offensive, is certainly odd.