In his third turn as a director, the comedian and filmmaker has finally made a movie that feels as sharp and personal as his stand-up. Not surprisingly, it deals with race, fame, and celebrity.

Chris Rock and Rosario Dawson in Top Five

Ali Paige Goldstein/Paramount Pictures

But there are a lot of funny people in the world. Hell, there are a lot of funny people in Top Five, the new movie Rock wrote, directed, and stars in. People like Kevin Hart, Sherri Shepherd, J.B. Smoove, Leslie Jones, Jay Pharoah, and Tracy Morgan, who appear in various roles, while others turn up as themselves in cameo appearances I won't spoil.

Rock's ability to generate laughs has never been in question. But his particular gifts are felt in the incisive intelligence with which he does so, how he forges tough truths into razor-edged, bracingly intelligent jokes like no other. The past two weeks have found Rock dropping brilliantly honed observations like perfectly lobbed grenades by way of the press he's been doing for the film. He explained to New York that comedy is "the only thing that smacks Hollywood out of its inherent racism, sexism, anti-­Semitism," forcing the industry to hire Roseanne Barrs on the basis of talent rather than the "thin blonde girls" to which it defaults.

He noted to Rolling Stone that he'd "love to work with Alexander Payne and Richard Linklater. But they don't really do those movies with black people that much." He wrote a terrific essay on race and the film industry in The Hollywood Reporter . He can't stop providing reminders of how good he can be in his undiluted form, on stage, or in print.

Ali Paige Goldstein/Paramount Pictures

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