2008 / 107 Minutes / R
Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

I tend to like movies about making movies but I think, in general, that people who aren’t really, really into movies tend to find such movies very, very boring. (I tried to make my own wife watch “Ed Wood”, for example, and she thought it was utterly pointless. She demanded I turn it off about halfway through. I must really love this woman, seeing as how I didn’t automatically file for divorce.) Therefore, I think it’s very clever that Ben Stiller took a movie about making a movie (inherently box office poison) and filled it with big stars, delightfully vulgar humor and plenty of things blowing up real pretty. Even if you find movies about making movies as boring as I find most “inspirational” sports movies (ugh!) you’ll probably laugh your ass off during the majority of “Tropic Thunder”.

The plot concerns a ragtag group of actors who’ve been thrown together to make a movie based on a Vietnam vet’s memoirs. This group contains an action superstar desperate for a hit (Ben Stiller), a drug-addled comedian trying to prove his range (Jack Black) and an actor so method that he’s undergone skin-pigmentation surgery to play a gruff, black sergeant (Robert Downey Jr.). Frustrated at their inability to form a cohesive group or even give convincing performances, their novice Brit director (Steve Coogan) decides to strand these actors alone in the Vietnamese countryside with a group of hidden cameras and hidden explosives to motivate them. Of course things go horribly awry and the group soon find themselves running from real-life drug runners who are using real-life bombs and bullets.

Much has been made of certain scenes of the film that contain a word that’s offensive to developmentally disabled people. But those who get outraged over those scenes are missing the point. When Robert Downey Jr. warns of the dangers of an actor going “full retard” he’s actually mocking actors’ shameless Oscar-baiting rather than anyone with actual disabilities. Besides, this movie is out to offend everyone, even those who are sure that nothing can offend them anymore. This movie pushes the boundaries of good taste in ways I never knew Stiller was capable of (he not only stars in this film but also wrote and directed it). He pushes them, in fact, in ways that I didn’t even know COULD be pushed. I was surprised by the territory this movie was willing to mine for big laughs…and I love it when a comedy proves capable of surprising me. From the beginning moments of this film, Stiller puts the audience off guard and then does his best to keep them there. The result is a comedy that is ballsy, raucous, gleefully offensive, and downright daring. Stiller and Black have gotten mainstream and boring lately, which works to “Tropic Thunder’s” distinct advantage. The average moviegoer won’t expect this movie to be so unpredictable and edgy. Stiller skewers Hollywood royally, but he’s got plenty of satirical venom to go around. Issues of race, drug addiction, hip-hop, The Oscars and, yes, mental acuity are also fodder for laughter.

This all could have gone horribly wrong, but Stiller keeps the tone ingratiating and vibrant throughout. It takes balls to put a major character in blackface in this day and age, but damned if Ben Stiller doesn’t pull it off. Besides, it’s hard to be offended when you’re having this much fun. He pulls off several delicate balancing acts of tone within this movie. He also stages a few action set pieces that are better than one might expect, develops characters with at least two and a half dimensions from oversized caricatures, and makes the plot work as more than just a device to get from one gag to the next. He also casts a major Hollywood player hilariously against type in the film’s funniest role.

As Hollywood satires go, “Tropic Thunder” isn’t exactly “The Player” (though it boasts several surprising celebrity cameos of its own) but it’s a LOT funnier and a lot more fun to watch. It’s actually closer to Steve Martin’s underrated 1999 “Bowfinger” (Robert Downey Jr. was even in both films). Like that film it’s got some huge laughs, it’s broad without sacrificing any of its wit, and it’s a damn good time. Maybe that doesn’t count for much in the realms of highbrow film criticism, but it’s more than enough to make ME happy.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 at 6:59 pm and is filed under Dale's Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.