Today’s post begins with a fractal called Konfetti Ka-BOOM. I picked it because the movie actually deserves a confetti shower and the “koboom” if for all the explosions. So--on with the review!-
Tropic Thunder begins with a statement something like this: during the Viet Name war ten men set out on a suicide mission. Four returned. Three men wrote books--two of which were actually published. But only one scored a movie deal: this is the story of the men who tried to make that movie… What follows is almost two hours of satire--wickedly skewering everything in the movie business--from actors with “issues” to out-of-control Producers to Directors who don’t know how to do the job--with the obligator crazy tech thrown in for good measure. The resulting stew is nearly two hours of often funny but frequently painful and always VERY RAW comedy.
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Ben Stiller plays fading Action Star Tugg Speedwell (think Sylvester Stallone in Rocky V). Robert Downey Jr. (fresh off his triumph in Iron Man) plays multi-”Oscar-ed” Australian method actor Kirk Lazerus (a la Sean Penn) so devoted to his craft that he undergoes a controversial surgery to turn his skin black for his role. Jack Black (in a platinum-blond dye job) plays drug-addled comic Jeff Portnoy as a sad fat man dieing to be taken seriously. (His performance brings images of Chris Farley to mind.) Brandon T. Jackson plays Rapper-turned-Actor Alpa Chino (I could pick a ton of rapper-turned-actors this applies to): he has a secret lurking in his closet. Jay Baruchel plays neophyte Actor Kevin Sanduski who just might be the only person with sense in this movie. Steve Coogan plays Damien Cockburn--an influential British Stage Director massively out of his element directing an action picture. Nick Nolte plays Four Leaf Tayback who wrote the book on which the story is based: like almost everyone else in the movie he has a secret of his own (which I won’t reveal here.) Stateside Matthew McConaughet (essentially satirizing himself) plays Tugg‘s agent Rick Peck. Like any good movie based in Hollywood there are lots of stars playing themselves in cameos (all of which are loads of fun.)
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Still, the single-best reason to se Tropic Thunder may well be Tom Cruise as Les Grossman. Cruise, commits to his role as the foul-mouthed studio head who’s only concern is the bottom line in a way we haven’t seen since Born on the Fourth of July. The pretty boy actor dons a bald cap, thick glasses, fat suit, chest wig and arm-hair appliances to mask his good looks. He even changes his voice! Will he be Oscar nominated? I don’t know--but his performance is certainly noteworthy.
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Tropic Thunder isn’t afraid of going over the top. As I said earlier, the humor is often as painful as it is funny-- and the script has language that may well make a sailor blush. Likewise the movie confronts several “sensitive issues”(race and mental retardation) with decidedly mixed results. (Still, you have to give the movie props for not shying away from hard topics. There is lots of gore--but the blood is pretty much fantastical. The movie has no nudity but an extended scene of Jack Black wearing nothing but bikini briefs is more than enough skin. All in all, I’m not sure how this movie would play in the dead of winter--but as a Summer Flick it’s a damn fine way to end the season.
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FINAL GRADE: A
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