I may have laughed a lot, but that doesn't make this a good film

Rating: 2/10 (26 August 2008)

I must admit I did laugh a lot whilst watching this, but that doesn't make this a good film, or a good comedy for that matter. Imagine if you will, taking someone on a night out with bunch of your old school friends, mates from a sports team that you play in etc. You have a great laugh at all the in jokes and times you spent together, but your guest cannot see the fun because they just weren't there. Maybe one or two of the stories were funny to outsiders, but for the most part unless you are part of that community it all just goes over their heads.
This is the fundamental problem with Tropic Thunder. I went to see this movie with my wife, and because I work in film production there were many in jokes and nuances that I found funny. I have seen egotistical actors, inexperienced in-over-their-heads directors, crazy crew members, dealt with bizarre studio politics, worked in guerrilla style film making, and shot in unusual and politically unsound regions. Most of the humour in this film relies on the viewer being able to cross reference those experiences with the very exaggerated situations shown here. My wife however, not working in film production missed most of the jokes and came away quite bored with whole experience. Take away the in house laughs and all you are left with is toilet humour, gross out laughs and some send ups of classic Vietnam movies.
It seems that the film makers really struggle to make humour outside of themselves. For instance the Simple Jack retard story about how an action star tries to win Oscar fame by playing a character with learning difficulties in a very bad movie is supposed to be a satire as to how big movie stars can be out of touch with real life subjects. I don't believe that this is intended to be insensitive and offensive to people with learning difficulties, but unfortunately this plot device is executed so badly and pushed so far that instead of lampooning Hollywood stars as it set out to do, it becomes extremely offensive to the very people it did not intend to offend.
I'm assuming that discovering the drug lord is only child is supposed to be funny, but try explaining that to NGOs who work with the child soldiers in Africa. When you look at the lost childhoods, violence and poverty caused by this issue how can this be funny. This is yet another attempt at humour in this movie that failed to hit its mark. Maybe this was an attempt to highlight the issue of child work / slavery problems, but an R Rated comedy like this is quite clearly the wrong vehicle to make socio-political commentary. The plot would have worked just as well if the drug had been a regular guy, and would have been far less incendiary.
The references to Apocalypse now, Platoon, Deer Hunter were quite funny. The Chucky send up didn't quite work for me, but at least I saw the joke and I'm sure Child's play fans appreciated it. Again these were movie in jokes, that relied on the viewer previously seeing the movie that it was sending up, but at least these could be appreciated by anyone who had seen these particular films.
All in all unless you have experience in the movie business there are few laughs to be had with Tropic Thunder. This film is really up Hollywood's own anus. Movies are meant to be enjoyed by all. $150,000,000 of the general public's hard earned cash spent at the box office on a film that generates laughs for only movie insiders is quite irresponsible.