Back on Patrol: RIDE ALONG 2

After a woefully underprepared security guard played by Kevin Hart helped his future brother-in-law cop (Ice Cube) take down a big bad guy during a routine job shadow in 2014’s surprise hit comedy Ride Along, he decided to become a police officer, too. Now it’s Ride Along 2, and the talkative, blustering little guy is a rookie cop who really wants his fiancé (Tika Sumpter) to convince her brother to let her needy man go to Miami on a case. She does. So the mismatched pair is together again, this time in a more professional capacity, hot on the trail of a hacker (Ken Jeong) and the drug dealer (Benjamin Bratt) for whom he works. Once again, bland cop mechanics and tepid buddy comedy banter is brought ever so slightly to life through the one-note disjunction between Hart and Cube’s personas. They each get to work a couple of character traits in opposition to the others’ while the plot strands them in a generic detective story that develops lazily.

Deeply uninspired and undercooked, this mediocre and unnecessary movie never makes a good case for itself. The arc of the main relationship – from loud disagreements to begrudging respect – is an exact duplicate of its predecessors, and the journey there is the same dull jumble of thinly developed action beats and repetitive rambling jokey patter. (They’re brothers-in-law, because of the impending wedding, and also they’re in law enforcement. That’s about the funniest it gets.) If the characters were more interesting or entertaining, I suppose I’d be more apt to excuse a passionless, mindless retread. But the screenplay (again by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi) leans hard on the preexisting ideas of who Hart and Cube are, since the first movie didn’t exactly make them much else worth remembering. I still wish they had switched roles way back at the start of this series, making Cube the hyperverbal overconfident guy, and Hart the strong silent type. At least it’d be something different.

But, alas, here we are, with a workmanlike and flavorless film following Hart and Cube through the streets of Miami on an easily solved, but belabored, case. They’re no Bad Boys. We get a generic foot chase (the kind that thinks it’s funny to make the participants bounce off a trampoline and run through people’s houses – stuff like that). Then later a car chase tries to get laughs by intercutting Grand Theft Auto-style video game animation. Other would-be comic action beats include a run-in with an alligator, a car bomb, and shootouts in a nightclub and at the docks. It means well. The location work is functional – sunny and clear – while the action is plain and the comedy and mystery plot are mostly predictable. Returning director Tim Story has a movie that just refuses to think through anything that’s happening, resulting in a halfhearted jumble of cliché. Will the chief (Bruce McGill) threaten to suspend the leads? Will the villain have an inside man? Will women be treated as accessories? All of the above. Duh.

Admirably diverse, so at least it has that going for it, the movie is otherwise routine and uninspired. It’ll contrive a scene for a policewoman played by Olivia Munn to show up to an active crime scene while wearing a sports bra, then not even bother explaining the skimpy reasons why. It’ll include an underdeveloped subplot about a tyrannical wedding planner (Sherri Shepherd). Whatever it takes to shove in an extra stereotype-driven attempt at holding an audience’s attention. There’s so little here. And then there’s the characters’ cavalier approach to guns – shooting at perps, threatening suspects, using the weapons to playact toughness or cover insecurities, treating their job as an extension of a video game. A better comedy could lampoon this mindset (a timely satiric idea) instead of sitting back and snoozing its way through stale cop movie habits. I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely not in the mood for a movie with a comedy sequence involving a jumpy policeman shooting an unarmed person (he doesn’t die, but still…), especially in a totally frivolous and disposable mediocrity like this one.

A King of Comedy: TOP FIVE

Sometimes a movie’s just a movie. That’s what Chris Rock has a character say in the opening seconds of Top Five. But it’s tempting to read the movie, which he wrote, directed, and gave himself the lead role in, as semi-autobiographical. The story follows a celebrity comedian who was a big hit on the standup circuit, went to Hollywood making dumb comedies, and now would rather be taken seriously, a difficult change to make mid-career. Is that reminiscent of Rock? Sure. But it’s also anyone who got a start in the public consciousness as a professional jokester and wants to grow as an artist, maybe in ways a fanbase isn’t willing to follow. Even though questions of showbiz’s gilded cage are the trappings of Top Five’s scenario, Rock’s opening statement is essentially a reassurance to the movie audience. Relax. Enjoy. Sometimes a movie is just a movie. Don’t read into it. Of course, the statement is immediately challenged back by another character in the scene, setting up the push and pull of the experience that wants its bite and lightness, too. The movie’s pleasant enough to make that work.

Rock plays Andre Allen, a man suffering through a confluence of anxiety-provoking events. After three wildly successful terrible comedies in which he played a grizzly bear police officer, his first attempt at a serious drama, a film about a Haitian slave uprising, is in the process of flopping. Reviews are terrible and audience awareness is low. His wedding to a reality show star (Gabrielle Union), micromanaged by her handler (Romany Malco), is days away. It’s enough to drive the four-years-sober comedian to eye booze with a needy look. In New York City for a whirlwind press tour before his bachelor party, a reporter for the Times (Rosario Dawson, making the most of a rare chance to shine) wants to follow him around all day for a profile. That’s certainly not bringing his stress level down. Rock’s screenplay successfully builds a feeling of overwhelmed irritation as Allen races through his day, trading one full plate for another, trying to keep them spinning.

But perhaps the real trick of the movie is how loose and casual it feels despite the character’s pressure cooker day. Allen can’t wander down the street without people shouting his name. Career demands are crashing in around him. He’s on edge, but that’s what’s so nice about having a fun person to talk to. Rock and Dawson have charming chemistry as they wander from limos and press junkets to nightclubs and dive bars. It’s a flirtatious bounce that drives the movie, a mixture of real attraction and professional interest. Sure, they’re both seeing other people, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fun to hang out. Anyway, the movie stacks the deck against their current relationships, making their others standard, thinly drawn romantic comedy Bad Matches.

The movie starts as a self-critical artistic struggle story a la Stardust Memories, and then slowly turns into a sugary rom-com, or rather reveals that those were its intentions all along. The result is shaggy and unhurried, often pleasant, sometimes honest, usually charming. An episodic collection of moments from a day in the life heading towards a sly rom-com conclusion, Rock’s the focus of every moment. But he’s generous enough to turn over whole scenes to the talented ensemble he’s assembled. We meet Andre Allen’s bodyguard (J.B. Smoove), his agent (Kevin Hart), a group of old friends who knew him before fame (Sherri Shepherd, Tracy Morgan, Jay Pharoah, Leslie Jones, Hassan Johnson), a gross pimp (Cedric the Entertainer), and a handful of cameos too good to spoil.

Top Five is almost sharp and thoughtful about the ways showbiz boxes entertainers into one skill set, how difficult it is to assert individuality when the public refuses to see the real you inside. But the movie decides it’d rather be warm, gooey, and pleasant. The result is a likably modest hangout movie, loose, talky, largely sweet but for a few staggeringly dirty moments. Big on personality, short on insight, the movie’s content to suggest larger topics and then goof around just outside them. And I enjoyed it while it did.