Featured Review: TROPIC THUNDER

Tropic Thunder



Starring- Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr, Nick Nolte, Jay Baruchel, Brandon T. Jackson, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Cruise



Directed by Ben Stiller



Grade: A-



"I know who I am! I'm the dude playing the dude disguised as another dude!"

Everybody likes Hollywood, but films about Hollywood often do not fare well. Most viewers have never worked inside a studio, so the art of satirizing something everyone on the set can side with, but the audience can't, often results in a mixed, awkward film. At times, especially in the beginning, Tropic Thunder crosses that line, threatening never to come back. But with a little moxie by its stars and a pretty cohesive and well-rounded script, Thunder rolls back.

While his starring comedies have been lackluster of late, Jack Black scored a major hit with Kung Fu Panda. Robert Downey Jr. has Iron Man and a serious career. The real test for the film was for Ben Stiller, who not only stars, but co-wrote and directed Thunder. Outside of the holiday hits A Night At The Museum and Madagascar, his legitimate comedies haven't risen to the challenge of his peers the past few years. So it's fitting that while Stiller makes himself the de facto number one star, he also makes a winning film because of his reliance on sharing the wealth with his co-stars.

Tropic Thunder starts with a trailer for each of the main characters. We meet Tugg Speedman (Stiller), the faltering action star trying to branch out without much success, Jeff "Fats" Portnoy (Black), the drug-addicted, Eddie Murphy-esque comic, and Kirk Lazarus (Downey), the insecure 5-time Oscar winning Australian who gets a skin procedure to play a black soldier. Their egos and other mistakes by rookie director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) and his crew throw the film production into a tailspin.

With patience and money running thin, Cockburn is goaded by Four Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte), the deranged former soldier and writer of the book the film is based on, to drop the actors off in the real jungle and film guerrilla-style. So off go the three stars and two supporting actors, the energy drink spokesrapper Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson), and the only character without an ego or exposition, Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel) into the wilds of Vietnam without a clue what's happening.

After the initial trailers, Tropic Thunder starts off quite poorly. Coogan whines. Tom Cruise yells and curses. The likes of Bill Hader and Danny McBride run around spouting things, and the other stars get their introductions and story lines through television appearances. There's too much going on at one time to really focus on the humor at hand. The film doesn't really pick up until the five actors get booted off to the jungle, and get an unexpected and gross surprise almost immediately.

As the main cast get deeper and deeper into the jungle, the action picks up, but so does the laughter. The actors have discussions about their often shallow personal lives, about role techniques, about who they're supposed to be to other people. All five of them have a chance to really shine at some point without resorting to, at least in Stiller and Black's case, what type of humor they're familiar with.

If you can't tell from the trailer alone, Downey Jr's portrayal of Kirk Lazarus is downright amazing in itself. Humor wise, there have been better roles, and his is probably not even the funniest of the movie (Cruise and Matthew McConaughey are arguably the funniest when they share screen time). But the fact that the normally sarcastic-toned, dark-haired, beady eyed Downey can switch back and forth between a blond, blue eyed Australian and his stereotypically gruff black persona shows how much depth Downey can eke out of himself even in a summer comedy. He brings a touch of true class to his absurdness, whereas Stiller is forced to parody his own ridiculous Zoolander type goofiness.

Meanwhile, though his character is still close to being the straight man of the group, it's good to see Jay Baruchel in a bigger chunk of movie action. Since his lead role in the cult Judd Apatow series Undeclared, Baruchel has quietly popped up in bit parts over the years, including Almost Famous, The Rules Of Attraction, Million Dollar Baby (playing his own retarded character), and Knocked Up. If any of Apatow's proteges could use his own star-making vehicle, after Tropic Thunder Baruchel attests that he can do it, being both funny and often times the sensible leader of the egotistical group.

The cameos number in the dozens, perhaps the largest since Robert Altman's The Player. We see them in the fake trailers, television talk shows, and the award ceremonies (often out of irony), and yet unlike most films that shill for the acknowledgments, Thunder's star power feels legit. Strangest of all is the fact we expect Cruise and McConaughey to be cameos, but they are in the film just as much as any other actor. Cruise has great fun in his first comedy appearance since Austin Powers in Goldmember, and McConaughey, replacing Owen Wilson, works better in his role than Wilson would have because we don't expect it from a "romantic comedy" star like McConaughey.

Tropic Thunder loses itself in the middle of lampooning the Hollywood system at times, and the potential for an even better film was there. But while it was slightly disappointing to the funny bone, Thunder survived among its comedic peers by being comprehensible and enjoyable all the way through, which is a much better compliment than most of 2008's comedies have been given. Perhaps if it does well at the box office, we will see a Tugg Speedman reprise in Tropic Thunder VI: Arctic Lightning. I'm sure Stiller would light up with that thought.