REVIEW: Tropic Thunder

STARRING: Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr. View Trailer RELEASE DATE: 08/15/2008 DATE SCREENED: 07/21/2008 The Verdict OK - Wait for the DVD

Ben Stiller hasn’t made me laugh since Meet the Fockers in 2004. After the complete disaster of Heartbreak Kid, Stiller took matters into his own hands, writing and directing Tropic Thunder. With a cast that includes Robert Downey Jr. and Jack Black, plus a story that seemed somewhat original based on the trailer, I had high hopes that Stiller’s steak of unfunny comedies would be over.

Tropic Thunder introduces us to the main characters by opening with fake trailers. We see trailers for the latest movies of action hero Tugg Speedman (Stiller), Kirk Lazarus (Downey Jr.), and funnyman Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), plus a commercial by rapper Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson). These four stars have teamed up for a big budget war flick. Kirk Lazarus is a playing a black character, in a form of black face. Being committed to method acting he is living as a black person 24/7. Things are not going well during filming. The movie is over budget and the actors are not giving their best performances. An out of control studio executive (Tom Cruise) is demanding results and threatening to fire the director. Acting upon the recommendation of the war veteran on whose book the movie is based (Nick Nolte) the director ships the stars out to a remote area of Vietnam, where they will get a taste of what it’s really like to be a soldier. Things go horribly wrong, and Speedman ends up captured by Vietnamese drug dealers who are familiar with his work. They contact the movie studio, and Les basically tells the kidnappers to go screw themselves. It seems that Les and Speedman’s agent (Matthew McConaughey) are willing to let him die in order to collect the insurance money to recoup the projected loses on the film. It’s up to the remaining actors to band together in order to save Speedman from this dangerous situation.

Tropic Thunder is a mixed bag. Tom Cruise steals the movie, as he is hilarious as the out of control studio executive. I certainly would have never expected this kind of funny, and profane, performance from Cruise. There are also funny moments as the actors wander the forrest trying to figure out if they are in a real dangerous situation or if it’s all an elaborate set-up. And the part in which the leader of the drug gang forces Speedman to re-enact his past role as a retarded kid had me laughing as well.

The main thing I did not like about Tropic Thunder is Downey Jr., as Kirk Lazarus, in black face. This is the year 2008, and the humor in black face is completely lost on me. The movie tries to soften the blow by having the rapper Alpa Chino say things to Kirk that black people will be thinking while watching the movie. Although that may be enough to make most people feel its ok to laugh at the character, it didn’t work for me. I also didn’t find Jack Black’s performance, in which he is either in withdrawal from his heroin addiction or trying to steal heroin, to be funny at all.

Overall, I’d have to say that the film is just OK, and only worth renting on DVD. Downey Jr is lucky he just did Iron Man, as performing in black face is usually not good for one's career these days. Stiller has managed to make a film that made me laugh at times, so the streak is technically over. But there is still plenty of room for improvement in his future comedies.