Chris Rock: Tamborine

Tamborine is more of a look at what can be rather than what is. Looking to the future isn't what we're used to, but there are few better masters of the form to help offer a way forward.

The energy is different, but Rock is still very funny and occasionally still provocative, if only because the culture has shifted in recent years.

Tamborine is rife with political humor and pointed observations on race in Rock's usual style, but the special is mostly about Rock himself, a self-reflective piece in which he owns up to his mistakes.

Tamborine never goes too dark, nor does Rock ever truly blur the line between stand-up set and therapy session...he never loses sight of the comedy - even as he distributes the hard-earned wisdom that comes from regret.

[Tamborine] sees Rock addressing his self-selected smaller audience with both less volume and more intimacy.

He has honed this material, beefing up jokes and cutting out fat, and his comedy has become tighter, funnier if also slicker, shifting from a story of a comic struggling with demons to one describing how he once was lost and now he's found.

Rock now recognizes the importance of learning life lessons and accepting cold hard truths about himself... That's something some of his peers and those who look up to him in comedy would be wise to listen to and heed.

Repackaged, Rock's set could actually make for a Peterson-style self help guide - Rock's Rules for Life.

Tamborine is as intimate as it is ridiculous, and although the content of Rock's material drives this home when it needs to, the special is always ready to assist him when necessary.

Rock has thus made his most personal special without ever getting that personal - a testament to his talents, not a criticism of them.

There are a few missteps...but at a time when legendary stand-ups are using their multimillion dollar Netflix specials to reveal how out of touch they are with today, Rock remains as potent as ever.

There's pain in the jokes and it's gripping watching a man bare his soul on stage; a marked step up from the first half of Tamborine that doesn't seem to really have one.