Chris Rock (“Bad Company,” “Down to Earth”) the actor might want to pass on this key piece of advice to Chris Rock the director. Don’t let me try to act! Stay away from situations where I might be expected to deliver some range of emotion and instead give me as many opportunities as possible to do stand-up.
Unfortunately, the actor-director sides of Rock never had that conversation and “Head of State” attempts to fashion Rock into leading man material.
And as is customary with any Chris Rock film, it quickly falls to pieces any time he’s not doing stand up comedy.
Rock’s plays Mays Gilliam, a Washington, D.C., alderman about to be out of a job. But after the untimely death of the party frontrunner, Gilliam is plucked from obscurity and thrust into the limelight as his (unnamed) party’s nominee for president of the United States.
They really don’t expect him to win, but somehow his candidacy will provide a springboard for the party’s candidate in the 2008 election. “Head of State” doesn’t waste much time on the logic of that, or on the logic of anything really, and becomes a series of sketches, both comic and pseudo-dramatic.
“Head of State” relies on scenes of jingoist candidates, presidential call girls, rich elderly white people doing the Electric Slide, psycho girlfriends and other equally improbable situations to generate a few laughs.
This propensity for showing “white people acting black” wasn’t new when Steve Martin’s “Bringing Down the House” did it several weeks ago, and the concept hasn’t gotten any fresher since then.
Unlike “Bringing Down the House,” “Head of State’s” stereotypical jokes at least aren’t offensive, just retreads of jokes that were much funnier when we heard them back in 1980.
One saving grace in this film is a strong supporting cast, particularly Bernie Mac (“The Bernie Mac Show”).
“Head of State” gets a shot of adrenaline when he enters the film, playing Mays’s bail bondsman brother and his choice for a running mate but even that cannot compensate for Rock’s bad acting and plodding direction.
Although we could have done without Mac punching everyone in sight, more of Bernie and less of Rock could have kept this film on a funnier path.
Like Dennis Miller and Dana Carvey, talented comics who have had disappointing film careers, Chris Rock could point to lousy scripts and bad directors for his lack of success as a movie star.
With “Head of State” Rock has no one but himself to blame due to his multiple roles as actor, writer and director. What might work as an election-year stand-up routine is a lame duck on screen. After 90 minutes of ineffective campaigning, “Head of State” did not get my vote.
“Head of State” is rated PG-13 for language, some sexuality and drug references.
