Tropic Thunder Review by Shale August 15, 2008 I normally don't go to Ben Stiller comedies. The last one I saw in theater was There's Something About Mary a full decade ago. The draw to this movie? Besides a cast that included Jack Black, Nick Nolte, Matthew McConaughey, and an uncredited and unrecognizable Tom Cruise, was watching Robert Downey Jr. play a black American in this spoof of Hollywood movie making. I was pleasantly rewarded for going to this multi-star movie, which even had a cameo of Tobey Maguire because it was genuinely funny. OK, let me clarify that before you take sis and grandma to see this very appropriately R-rated flick. The humor is vulgar, politically incorrect and quite possibly offensive. Still, I found it funny as well as the rest of the audience around me. The humor starts without warning, while we are watching those trailers for coming features and product ads that are supposed to be rated for all audiences. There on the screen is entrepreneur Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson) doing an ad for his energy drink Booty Sweat. It was a shock after the last trailer to see this number with Jackson having two fine booties in hot pants pressing against his head. Then we move to the trailer for the potty humor movie of Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) The Fatties: Fart 2 which sorta resembles an exaggeration of Eddie Murphy's The Klumps. The trailer for our action star, Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller) is another sequel to an improbable movie franchise Scorcher VI: Global Meltdown, where he saves the world. You'll notice these phony trailers are almost real. Our final big-name actor, Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.) is an Australian known for totally immersing himself in character. The trailer, showing a dramatic Lazarus playing a dark-ages gay priest in Satan's Alley is visually very well-done (can't wait for it to come out). Those trailers are the background, We are then thrown onto the set of Tropic Thunder a Vietnam war movie where all these actors are tugging at getting their scenes right, which is resulting in disaster for the film which is over-budget and behind schedule. Movie Crew On Location The frantic director, Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) at the suggestion of the book's hero writer, Four Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte) dumps his actors into the jungle with hidden cameras and pyrotechnics all around to make them really feel in a combat situation. It doesn't take long for the actors to get lost and stumble across a poppy farming drug gang who think they are heavily armed drug agents. Stiller, Downey, Black on Patrol This is where the action starts and our actors eventually figure out they are not in a movie but a real war and begin to act their way thru it. OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE CONTROVERSY Just as in any war movie, our actors-turned-real-soldiers have their own irritation with each other and working thru that has some funny moments. Alpa Chino, a real American black is put off by a white Australian who not only has a black American role but stays in character all the time with his degrading '60s black rap. At one point he calls Lazarus a "koala-honky-******." But that little blurb of realistic (and funny at the moment) vernacular was not the controversy with this movie. During one of the moments when Lazarus and Speedman are discussing acting, are flashback scenes from the movie Simple Jack where Speedman stammers thru an over-the-top portrayal of a retarded man with bad teeth in his one attempt to prove himself an actor and get out of the action movies. He and Lazarus are talking about how he may have gone too far in his portrayal of a retarded person to where it affected his mind. Here's the dialogue: Speedman: "There were times when I was doing Jack when I actually felt retarded. Like really retarded." Lazarus: "Oh yeah. Damn." Speedman: "In a weird way, I had to sort of just free myself up to believe that it was okay to be stupid or dumb." Lazarus: "To be a moron." Speedman: "Yeah." Speedman: "It's what we do, right?" Lazarus: "Everybody knows you never do a full retard." Speedman: "What do you mean?" Lazarus: "Check it out. Dustin Hoffman, 'Rain Man,' look retarded, act retarded, not retarded. Count toothpicks to your cards. Autistic, sure. Not retarded. You know Tom Hanks, 'Forrest Gump.' Slow, yes. Retarded, maybe. Braces on his legs. But he charmed the pants off Nixon and won a ping-pong competition. That ain't retarded. You went full retard, man. Never go full retard." With that bit of dialogue and Stiller's portrayal in a mock movie, Simple Jack many of the agencies working with developmentally disabled people were up in arms and some even proposing a boycott. (Good luck with that). I have worked in the field with developmentally disabled people since the time we called them retarded. Language changes, gets euphemized over the years so that what was once acceptable is now embarrassing or insulting. Such as moron, imbecile and idiot, all clinical terms for developmentally disabled until they made their way into common and insulting usage. Now, "retard" is an insulting word and those in the profession try to get away from it. Even the agency I work for had "retarded" in its name when it started in the 1960s. Likewise, one of the agencies in an uproar over this movie ARC would like to forget that its acronym was originally the Agency for Retarded Citizens. Just as "koala-honky-******" may look more derogatory in print or on your monitor, it was funny when delivered by Brandon T. Jackson on the screen. Reading the dialogue between Downey and Stiller in script may look more insulting than it sounded at the moment describing an absurd premise that actors get too into character. (Maybe not an absurd premise to some who thought the Heath Ledger killed himself because of getting into the character of The Joker). You had to have heard Downey, with the makeup and inflections of a black man of the '60s delivering the lines and you had to see him as not a professional in the developmental disability field but as a regular guy talking about acting roles. My advice to the organizations that express umbrage and advocate boycotts; Get Real! It ain't gonna happen and you may even help this movie like the fanatical Christians who wanted to boycott The Last Temptation of Christ in 1988. Not everyone is sensitive to the offensive language in a dialogue between two actors playing a character who is playing a character. Inform people with your sensitivity of what they will encounter but it is a personal choice whether to see this movie or not. I did and enjoyed it very much. I intend to add it to my extensive DVD collection and to see it again.
OMG I was waiting for this movie for a so long time!!! But cinemas in my town are closed until September I love Ben Stiller movies where he's dumb. I mean like in Dodgeball or Zoolander. not like in Duplex or Something about Mary or Meeting Parents
I saw Tropic Thunder yesterday and it was totally schizophrenic in its approach to movie making, but it offered enough laughs to make it worthwhile As an african american I was not offended by the black face, nor should the dims have a problem with the way they were depicted :cheers2: Hotwater
I thought this movie was really funny. Although, I did understand the plot of the movie about how they thought they were making movie when it was actual real life... but for some reason, it ended up leaving my really confused and with unanswered questions. 3 of my favorite things about this movie: 1.) TOM CRUISE! I seriously did not recognize him until the end and I was like "wait, is that Tom Cruise?!?!" It was hilarious! 2.) Ben Stiller throwing the toddler off of him when he's running across the bridge at the end. I seriously don't know why I thought that was funny, but I laughed hilariously. 3.) Robert Downy Jr. <--- Secret Celebrity Crush. Enough said.
