If I was married or engaged, and my husband or fiancee decided to leave me for Rosario Dawson, I would be OK with that betrayal. I really wanted to like Top Five, but like its main character, it couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be meditative or funny. At times, Top Five feels like a parody of celebrity culture and show biz then it abandons that route and is alternatively an illustration of vignettes shared by Rock or Dawson’s characters or a day in the life of a famous person. The parts are better as parts as opposed to a cohesive whole in narrative terms and tone. As a whole, it is neither a convincing movie about a celebrity’s life or self-consciously a movie that comments on the intersection of life and “reality.” Honestly if the entire film consisted of just Rock and Dawson walking around NYC and their encounters with the people in each other’s lives, especially Ben Vereen, Tracy Morgan and Leslie Jones, I would have enjoyed it more and recommend it highly, but the vignettes, though funny in a vacuum, actively made me like the characters less than I initially did.

SPOILERS

Anyone familiar with Dawson’s Descent won’t be too surprised by her character’s inappropriate and criminal response to her boyfriend’s cruel joke and bedtime proclivities. I like Rock, but I seem to have amnesia when it comes to his particular brand of sexual/gender hypocrisy-if he has sex, it is great, but if other people engage in the same activity or for the wrong reasons, it is gross. He isn’t wrong per se because who wants to deal with someone else’s bodily fluids, but you were doing that before, you just weren’t thinking about it. I guess that I should be relieved that mom jumped ship after hearing Rock’s first curse word. I found Top Five distasteful too, and I enjoyed Bad Santa. It is all about attitude-bawdy humor mixed with shaming is a turn off in a comedy and makes me judge the creator negatively. I only want consistency.