In the action comedy "Tropic Thunder," a group of actors shooting
a war movie is led by Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), a pampered
action superstar, Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), an
over-the-top Australian-born method actor who has gone to
extremes to get into character, and Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), a
gross-out comedy star.
.com
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It's not really a knock to say that nothing in Tropic Thunder is
funnier than its first five minutes, so sly that--especially for
people watching in theaters--you don't realize right away they
are the opening minutes of the movie. This outrageous comedy
begins with a series of fake previews, each introducing one of
the main characters in the film-proper (not that there's anything
proper about this film) and each bearing the familiar logo of a
different motion picture studio: Universal, DreamWorks SKG, et
al. Such playing fast and loose with corporate talismans verges
on sacrilege, but it's an index of how much le tout Tinseltown
endorses the movie as a demented valentine to itself. The premise
is that the cast of a would-be "Son of Rambo" movie shooting in
some Southeast Asian jungle get into a real shooting war with
drug-smuggling montagnards. Don't ask--though the movie does have
an answer--why such highly paid, usually ultra-pampered personnel
as superhero Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), Mozart of fart comedy
Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), hip-hop artist Alpa Chino (Brandon T.
Jackson), and five-time O-winner Kirk Lazarus from
Aus-try-leeah (Robert Downey Jr.) should be running through the
jungle unattended and very vulnerable. It matters only that the
real-life cast has a high time kidding their own profession and
flexing their comedic muscles. Bonus points go to Stiller for
co-writing the script (with Justin Theroux) and directing, and to
Downey, brilliant as a white actor surgically turned black actor
for his role and utterly committed to staying in character no
matter what ("I don't drop character till I done the DVD
commentary").
Be warned: The movie, too, is committed--to being an
equal-rtunity offender. Its political incorrectness extends
not only to Lazarus's black-like-me posturing but also Speedman's
recent, Sean Pennstyle O bid playing a cognitively
challenged farmboy--or, in Lazarus's deathless phrase, "going the
full retard." Others in the cast include Steve Coogan as a
director out of his depth, Nick Nolte as the Viet-vet novelist
whose book inspired the film-within-the-film, Matthew McConaughey
as Speedman's sun-blissed agent back home, and Tom Cruise--bald,
-suited, and profane--as an epically repulsive studio head.
Two hours running time is a mite excessive, but otherwise, what's
not to like? --Richard T. Jameson
Stills from Tropic Thunder (Click for larger image)
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