7/10Tropic Thunder
is a blood-and-guts full-bore spoof on Hollywood’s action
war movies and a parody on the film industry that produces them.
The top cast hardly take a wrong step in this violently entertaining
exercise directed, co-written, and produced by Ben Stiller doing
an Orson Welles by also appearing in the film.
Tropic Thunder trailer
A group of actors making a war movie
in Vietnam are forced to confront a real living enemy. The troupe
must discover their inner resourcefulness when a shoot goes hopelessly
wrong and they’re plunged into true battle. There’s
Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller) action hero whose career has stalled
after playing Simple Jack in an art house disaster; multi-Oscar
winning Australian Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jnr.) a method
actor so determined for realism he has a special treatment that
renders his face permanently black to play an African-American
GI (which singularly fails to impress the real African-American
in the team Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson)); and Jeff Portnoy
(Jack Black) who's hooked on heroin and can’t get far without
its moral support.
Their shooting script is based on the memoirs of
supposedly heroic amputee - in reality a con-man, John “Four
Leaf” Tayback (Nick Nolte). Unfortunately, flummoxed British
director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) decides to leave the cast
in a remote part of the jungle, so his explosives expert can give
them the works while covering the results with hidden cameras.
The cast are supposed to direct themselves through the scenes
that follow. However one long-lost land mine changes all that,
and a real enemy appears unexpectedly.
Top studio executives don’t miss being lampooned
by Stiller, nor do self-interested theatrical agents. Memorable
scenes include crackpot film producer Lee Grossman (Tom Cruise)
giving crazy instructions to his crew from afar and dancing with
inane glee over the end credits. A clever ploy with trailers gets
you into the movie almost before you think it’s started.
Even then it’s hard to know if it’s an actual ‘over
the top’ war movie until the camera pulls back to reveal
a film production crew. You have to look twice to know your favourite
star, because most of the cast are elaborately made up. Jack Black
has a blonde crew cut, Robert Downey Jnr could be out of a minstrel
show, and Tom Cruise is truly hard to recognize in his decisive
comic role.
Robert
Downey Jnr. (Iron Man) really steals the show. His exchanges
with Brandon T. Jackson (A Talent for Trouble) are extremely funny.
Ben Stiller (Night at the Museum) is at his frantic comic
best, while he’s ably supported by especially Tom Cruise
(Lions for Lambs), along with Nick Nolte, Matthew McConaughey,
Jay Baruchel, and Jack Black (Be Kind Rewind) perhaps
not quite up to his usual form.
Stiller directs with a firm hand from a script brimming
with excesses that milks maximum laughs. In fact the elaborate
special effects and action sequences would do justice to a serious
war epic. There is a more than a degree of grossness (the dripping
decapitated head, and the blood spurting wounded soldier) along
with such political incorrectness as would please Borat - par
for the course in today’s more raunchy comedies.
The cinematography and production values are all
that one would expect in a high budget movie of this type. The
excessive aspects of the script and language some may find offensive,
yet overall this action satire on the weirdness of film production
by Hollywood has to go down as a riot of rambunctious fun.
Robert
Downey Jnr. (Iron Man) really steals the show. His exchanges
with Brandon T. Jackson (A Talent for Trouble) are extremely funny.
Ben Stiller (Night at the Museum) is at his frantic comic
best, while he’s ably supported by especially Tom Cruise
(Lions for Lambs), along with Nick Nolte, Matthew McConaughey,
Jay Baruchel, and Jack Black (Be Kind Rewind) perhaps
not quite up to his usual form.