Apocalypse Not

Rating: 7/10 (13 September 2008)

Two days ago I plunked down $24 to take my girlfriend to see Tropic Thunder and, while it didn't disappoint, it did fall victim to the same shortcoming most comedies suffer: turning a high concept into a laugh sustaining 90 minute movie.TT starts out with three eye- wateringly funny mock trailers that introduce us to the stars of the fictional Vietnam war movie "Tropic Thunder:" Tugg Speedman (Stiller) a brainless and vain action film star, Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) a drug addicted fat pig of a fart famed comic and Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.) an Academy Award adorned Aussie method actor. When the film's director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) has his production threatened by ape-like studio magnate Les Grossman (Tom Cruise), Coogan takes the advice of 'Nam Vet Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte) to throw his sissy actors into "the sh##" in order to make the grittiest, most realistic war movie EVER.
As you'd expect, things don't play out so well for Cockburn and as the three actors' misadventure devolves into a serious FUGAZI, we get a solid 40 minutes of gut crunching laughs. But then TT runs out of steam, it's clever concept and it's actors foibles paraded to the point of comedic fatigue and, aside from a remaining handful of insultingly un-PC jabs, the laughs devolve into a declining pattern of chuckles.Regardless of TT's inability to keep the laughs cranked up from beginning to end, Robert Downey Jr flexes chiseled comedic chops that harken back to his priceless supporting work as Wayne Gale in Natural Born Killers. While TT may be the best comedy of the summer, it is far from being one of the best comedies ever, yet in a movie-going comedy desert, TT is a tantalizing mirage worth seeing for RDJ's work alone. It should also be noted Stiller and fellow screenwriter Justin Theroux spent 10 years writing TT and, in true Stiller fashion, they take the pi## out of everything Hollywood deserves to be hated for and never stop to consider how hard they bite the same hands they've been eating out of for years. I might not love TT, but I definitely enjoyed it and have no problem advising friends to do like the TT tagline says: Get Some.
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