After taking a clunky, overlong and out of touch set on an arena tour last year, comedy mastermind Chris Rock has refined that material down to a totally solid hour of cutting, observational and self-reflexive stuff that works.
His life has changed significantly in the ten years since his last special, Kill the Messenger; he is a divorced dad, he has overcome an addiction to porn and he has reconciled himself to the fact that, at 53 years old, his single dating life is not going to include much face time (or FaceTime) with Rihanna. At his recent Toronto stop, Rock weaved this personal stuff within his normally astute takes on the socio-political state of the world and, despite some on-target perspectives, after his five-minute bit on mortgages you'd be forgiven for leaving the show thinking he'd lost a step.
Thankfully, any such bits have been excised from this show he performed and filmed in Brooklyn. There's revelatory stuff about religion, the tired aspects of his relationship diatribes had a nap and are eye-opening here, and his bits on politics and kids are all mostly on-point (he should still reconsider the bullying thing; it's not landing yet).
Honestly, if you saw Rock tour this material and didn't want to revisit it again, do yourself a favour and watch Tamborine. Time is a great editor and, as seen here, it did a nice job of helping Chris Rock get his groove back.
(Netflix)His life has changed significantly in the ten years since his last special, Kill the Messenger; he is a divorced dad, he has overcome an addiction to porn and he has reconciled himself to the fact that, at 53 years old, his single dating life is not going to include much face time (or FaceTime) with Rihanna. At his recent Toronto stop, Rock weaved this personal stuff within his normally astute takes on the socio-political state of the world and, despite some on-target perspectives, after his five-minute bit on mortgages you'd be forgiven for leaving the show thinking he'd lost a step.
Thankfully, any such bits have been excised from this show he performed and filmed in Brooklyn. There's revelatory stuff about religion, the tired aspects of his relationship diatribes had a nap and are eye-opening here, and his bits on politics and kids are all mostly on-point (he should still reconsider the bullying thing; it's not landing yet).
Honestly, if you saw Rock tour this material and didn't want to revisit it again, do yourself a favour and watch Tamborine. Time is a great editor and, as seen here, it did a nice job of helping Chris Rock get his groove back.