Tropic Thunder surprised me. The trailer and ads had me braced for a classic screwups-in-peril format: hopeless incompetents defeating death with liberal doses of slapstick and potty humor. In that respect it didn’t disappoint, pouring on sight gags and classic slap in epic proportions. But the real reason to see Tropic Thunder is its razor sharp satirical dissection of the Hollywood hit machine.
Tropic Thunder is a fictional behind-the-scenes account of the making of an action-adventure movie, also called “Tropic Thunder.” We follow the cast and crew as they grind out another war movie, distinguished from all the others only by the extra tonnage of explosives employed by its special effects crew. The milquetoast British director has lost control of everything: the budget, the producer, the special effects guy, and the prima donna cast. The platoon in this movie includes Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), a fading Stallone type trying to win an Oscar, Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), a comedian trying a serious role and fighting his addiction to “jellybeans” (heroin), and Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey, Jr.), a pompous Australian method actor who has dived so deeply into his role as a black soldier that he has his skin surgically blackened. The director starts the cast on its descent into Viet-Hell when he heeds the unsolicited advice of “Four Leaf,” the burned-out Nam vet who wrote “Tropic Thunder.” Four Leaf demands that the script be abandoned in favor of dropping the bleating actors in the middle of the jungle, into the “real shit,” to be filmed guerilla style.
The movie is like a trip down a memory lane of Vietnam movies, including homages to Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, and Apocalypse Now. You may also recognize the gut-spilling “realistic” gore, the kind that makes the audience squirm and groan. There were moments I couldn’t look at the screen, and if you go queasy at the sight of blood and guts, think twice about seeing this movie.
The film’s sense of humor is often more cerebral than slapstick—you appreciate the joke even if you’re not laughing at it. However, there are some gem-like momentsshy;—be sure you get to the movie on time.
One notable news point about Tropic Thunder is that controversy persists about the use of the word “retard” as Lazarus advises Speedman about his depiction of “Simple Jack,” a mentally challenged farm boy, which was a financial disaster and near career killer. The joke is not on the mentally challenged—it’s on the actors themselves.
There are echoes of the genius of Zoolander in this movie. Ben Stiller is funny again, the jokes are quotable, and it has that ephemeral “watch it again and again” quality. I’ll admit with absolutely no PC guilt that it’s the funniest movie I’ve seen this summer.
