Friday, August 15, 2008

by Brian

Tropic Thunder is the latest by writer/director/hugely successful comedian Ben Stiller. Although he has been in seemingly 12 movies a year of late, this is in fact Stiller’s first follow up to the beloved Zoolander, a film which appears to grow in popularity each passing year. Tropic Thunder and Zoolander feature several common elements. Each contains a cameo around every turn, humor that some might find offensive and a grab bag of easy jokes. The ratio of quality is quite like Stiller’s own career, lots of hits, lots of misses and a lot of meh.

Tropic Thunder focuses on a group of actors working on a Vietnam picture of the same name. There is Ben Stiller’s Tugg Speedman, a man straight out of the late 80s and early 90s, pumping out stale installments of the action franchise "Scorcher" with an ever shrinking impact. Jack Black is Jeff Portnoy, the comedian best known for playing every part in the hit movie i.e. Norbit/Nutty Professor with a slew of addiction problems. Finally, there is Robert Downey Jr.’s Kirk Lazarus, five time Oscar winning Australian, who, in order to play the black officer in the script, gets surgery to darken his skin, a true method man who proudly proclaims to never drop out of character until the DVD commentary track is complete. A month behind schedule in its first week, their film is hijacked by its director into the jungle to shoot guerilla style, dropped right into a local drug lord’s homebase.

Stiller, along with co-writer’s Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen, craft a clever concept for Tropic Thunder. While films about Hollywood are commonplace, the scale of this picture is impressive and features less inside jokes. The actual laughs that stem from the story are another matter. Unquestionably, the show stealer is Robert Downey Jr. In a role that could have easily set back his reemerging career, Downey runs with it. The depths Lazarus takes to become his characters have clearly driven him a bit mad and Downey’s portrayal is dedicated and playful. He finds the right tone, a tough one no doubt since “black face” has understandably not been seen on the big screen in some time, lastly being misinterpreted and torn apart in Spike Lee’s Bamboozled. Downey plays his part with a pompousness that changes the horrid cliches he is unleashing into laugh riot. He is a man with too many voices in rolling around in his noggin.

Unfortunately, the other two leads have little to do. Stiller’s Tugg Speedman is mildly amusing at best. The washed up action star is nothing new, and the screenplay refrains from adding anything to the conversation. Jack Black’s character is just a drug addict, getting colder and more deranged each minute. Black is fine in the role but there is no meat to this one-note character. When these two are the focus, Tropic Thunder loses its footing. The giggles go away and one is left waiting for Downey or someone else to show up. Thankfully, the supporting cast is a dynamite one.

Jay Baruchel and Brandon T. Jackson are two newbies trying to break into the film world, the first a dedicated geek and the latter a rap mogul trying to expand his empire. Baruchel and Jackson provide plenty of laughs as the straight men of the movie, with Jackson’s constant bickering with Downey’s Lazarus reaching classic absurdity. Elsewhere, Matthew McConaughey of all people works wonders as Tugg Speedman’s agent, desperately trying to provide a Tivo for his client, his best role in years. The much hyped Tom Cruise scenes are fine at first but quickly lose momentun, turning into an endless display of how many different things he can attach the word “fuck” to. In a movie about actors doing everything they can to remain relevant, this is the one moment that rings truest.