...a remarkably uneven film, yet when the laughs do come, they can be sidesplitting.
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Note: In the following joint Blu-ray review, John and Will provide their opinions of the film, with John also writing up the Video, Audio, Extras, and Parting Thoughts.
The Film According to John:
"Tropic Thunder," the big-screen Hollywood spoof of Hollywood war movies, Hollywood actors, Hollywood filmmakers, and Hollywood filmmaking, was one of the funnier comedies of 2008, the others being quite a bit different. For instance, the remake of "Get Smart" was relatively gentle and reserved; the Coen brothers' "Burn After Reading" was irreverent and sarcastic; and "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" was salacious but intelligent. "Tropic Thunder," on the other hand, is wildly outrageous, vulgar, crude, and most often over-the-top. In their own ways, though, all of these movies made me laugh, at least in part. Go figure.
The premise of "Tropic Thunder" is one of those "what if's." What if a group of goofus actors making a Vietnam war movie on location in Vietnam traveled to the interior of the country, had real enemies shooting at them, and didn't know it was all for real? What if they thought it was just part of the film they were making?
When a movie company gets stuck and the producer threatens to pull the plug, the filmmakers decide to go for broke and shoot in the Vietnamese rain forests with hidden cameras. Only in the middle of the jungle where they're shooting, they run into members of a genuine drug cartel who think the actors are DEA officers. It all gets pretty silly pretty fast.
Ben Stiller co-wrote, co-produced, directed, and stars in the film. I mean, you'd think it was a Ben Stiller film. And you'd be right; his touch is everywhere. Stiller plays a fading, Stallone-type actor, Tugg Speedman, who's starred in about 800 Rambo-like action movies, most of them sequels, and now desperately needs a hit or he sees his career going down the tubes. His answer is a Vietnam saga, "Tropic Thunder," in the mold of "Platoon," "Apocalypse Now," and "Full Metal Jacket."
Stiller is funny, to be sure, but it's Robert Downey, Jr. who steals the show and upstages everybody. He plays Kirk Lazarus, an Australian superstar method actor who takes every part he plays as the Second Coming. Lazarus is clearly patterned on such meticulously finicky actors as Russell Crowe or Robert DeNiro. Stiller says it was important to cast a real-life no-nonsense actor that audiences could take seriously if the satire was to work, and certainly Stiller found his man in Downey. The guy is always the best part of any film he's in, and he's able to play heavyweight roles and comic ones with equal ease. In "Tropic Thunder" Downey's Lazarus character accepts a part as a black man in the film within the film, and to do it up right Lazarus demands that he not use makeup but have his skin surgically dyed black. Then he insists upon remaining in character at all times, actually beginning to think that he really is black. "I don't drop character until I done the DVD commentary." The result is hilarious, and Downey easily makes the movie worth watching.
The film's third major star is sort of the odd-man-out: Jack Black. Black's a funny guy, but his character, Jeff Portnoy, a gross, conceited, drug-addicted comic actor famous for fart jokes, never comes off as very funny; at least, not as funny as the others, perhaps because his character is the most overblown, exaggerated one of the lot. He often simply comes across as crude for crudity's sake.
Among the film's other players are Brandon T. Jackson as Alpa Chino, a hip-hop artist gone Hollywood; Jay Baruchel as Kevin Sandusky, a naive chatterbox who ventures into the fake film's very real jungle with the rest; Nick Nolte as Four Leaf Tayback, a tough, grizzled, handless Vietnam vet upon whose autobiographical book the filmmakers are basing the movie within the movie; Steve Coogan as Damien Cockburn, an effete British director of the movie; Danny McBride as Cody, the film crew's manic pyrotechnics expert; Matthew McConaughey as Rick Peck, Speedman's Tivo-obsessed agent; and Bill Hader as Rob Slolom, a studio toady.
Then, there is a major Hollywood superstar whose name does not appear in the keep-case credits. By now everyone on the planet knows who it is, but for the sake of the two viewers who have been on the International Space Station these past few years, I won't mention it (even though it's listed in the extras below; sorry about that). Anyway, even if you know who the superstar is, you probably won't recognize him under the hair and the lack thereof. And he takes the part so earnestly, it's hard not to crack up just looking at him.
Nevertheless, there are several problems with "Tropic Thunder" that keep it from classic status, like never knowing when to quit, milking a gag too long, letting whole sequences go on too long, and interspersing brilliance with, literally, flatulence. Illustrating the point are the pseudo trailers that open the movie, wherein each of the stars of the film within the film gets his own preview. Two of the trailers, the ones for action hero Tugman and serious dramatic actor Lazarus are clever and witty and very, very funny; the two for hip-hop artist Chino and comic actor Portnoy are intentionally gross and distasteful. These moments of ups and downs set the tone for the rest of the movie and make it hard to enjoy the good for the bad.
"Tropic Thunder" has a little something in it to offend everyone. Stiller isn't afraid to poke fun at the expense of the physically handicapped, the emotionally challenged, the disabled, blacks, even pandas. For every big laugh, though, there's a groaner. For every cute gag, there's one so coarse or tasteless, you have to shake your head. It's a remarkably uneven film, yet when the laughs do come, they can be so sidesplitting or so surprising, they're worth the trouble of the clunkers. You take what you can get.
John's Film Rating: 6/10.
The Film According to Will:
I honestly can't remember the last time I saw a comedy that was so relentlessly over-the-top and anarchic as "Tropic Thunder." Perhaps, the first "Naked Gun" film or maybe I should stretch my memory all the way back to "Airplane!" or "Kentucky Fried Movie." "Tropic Thunder" is more than just a jab at Vietnam War movies, but also takes numerous pot shots at actors and Hollywood in general. We've got greedy financiers, clueless directors, self-centered talent agents, and, of course, egotistical movie stars. Therein lies the main drawback to the film: It is definitely going to be TOO much for many viewers. "Tropic Thunder" dials it all the way to eleven and never tones the volume down. It's loud and almost cartoonish. You'll loudly groan in disbelief or disgust.
Ben Stiller stars as…well…the star, Tugg Speedman, action hero extraordinaire. Once an instant ticket to box office success, Speedman finds his fame waning. His latest big-budget blockbuster, "Scorcher VI: Global Meltdown" flopped. "Simple Jack" in which Speedman attempted more serious fare by playing a mentally handicapped individual was met with much derision. Speedman hopes to revive his sagging career by mixing action and drama in a war epic based on best-selling book based on the true-life story of Vietnam veteran Lt. Four Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte), who lost both his hands during the conflict. Tayback himself serves as the film's consultant. Stiller's co-stars include Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), a five-time Oscar winner from Australia. Lazarus is infamous for the great lengths he'll take to become his character. In order to play the African-American Sgt. Osiris, Lazarus has undergone a pigment alteration procedure to become a black man, his baby blue eyes replaced by contacts and his blonde hair covered by an afro wig. The third star of the picture is Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), an overweight comedian with serious drug problems. While Lazarus could be seen as a dig on Daniel Day-Lewis, Portnoy is a poke at troubled, overweight actors like John Belushi and Chris Farley, with a little bit of Andy Dick tossed in for good measure.
Portnoy's heroin addiction isn't the only trouble plaguing the controversial film within a film. The picture is helmed by first-time director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan), who is in way over his head. Cockburn is dangerously behind schedule and ridiculously over-budget. Even worse, he's only four days into production. Seeing that his life story is being flushed down the toilet by an incompetent director and overly demanding actors, Tayback convinces Cockburn to shoot the film "guerrilla-style." Cockburn takes them into the jungle where he's rigged the trees with hidden cameras and explosives. They're to act as if everything they see is real. Unfortunately, Cockburn steps on a stray land mine and is literally blown to pieces. Even more unfortunate, the actors (particularly Speedman) still believe it is all part of the movie. Speedman doggedly sticks to the script even when the cast comes under attack from a band of drug dealers known as the Flaming Dragon.
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[release]25001[/release]