Top Five

*

Reviewed by: Angus Wolfe Murray

Top Five
"It hurts to watch"

Chris Rock emerged as a stand-up, like Eddie Murphy before him, and then moved into film with limited success. He's one of those quick fire comedians such as Kevin Hart who walks small in the shadow of Richard Pryor.

As writer, director and star this is his opus pocus, the travails of a man who made his fortune in a bear suit and now wants to be taken seriously.

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Everybody loves Andre Allen. Hammy the Bear's franchise is a money pot for the Hollylickers and the fans can't get enough.

Who is Andre? He's Hammy.

Wrong answer.

Andre has a fiance (Gabrielle Union) who is planning their wedding as you read. She's a reality TV goddess, famous for her boyfriends and her plastic glamour, beneath which resides a gold diggin', heart squeezin' manipulative minx.

So far so been-there-bought-the-T-shirt. Enter Chelsea Brown (the wonderful Rosario Dawson) as a journo from The New York Times who is slumming it in Hammy's land for the interview that will introduce Andre as an actor of promise in his latest must-miss epic about an Haitian slave revolt.

They are driven in a limo, they walk the streets, they sit, they laugh, they go back to her place, they... And his entourage is given the evening off and his future bride is phone blocked.

It gets personal. They talk about sex - funny stories, illustrated with soft porn - until a twist in the tale chills those what-ifs.

This is the story of how fame makes you forget the good things in life and how celebrity is a drug.

It hurts to watch.

Why top five?

Ask Adam Sandler. He's here with Whoopi and their mates, bringing support of a kind to the star of the show. If you need to name drop why not go one further?

Why go anywhere?

Reviewed on: 08 May 2015
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Top Five packshot
A comedian wants to be taken seriously and so agrees to spend half a day with a New York Times journalist.
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