A Good Spoof Movie

Rating: 7/10 (1 September 2009)

Because Hollywood sometimes (or often) comes across as far too full of itself, I have always enjoyed the so-called "spoof" movies, when Hollywood engages in a bit of self-deprecating humour about how silly the whole business can sometimes be. I didn't think that "Tropic Thunder" was the best spoof movie I've ever seen, but it was pretty good and it did point out some of Hollywood's excesses. Actually, that happened right from the start when we were given a series of fake "trailers" and "previews" of movies that starred the actors who were in the fictional "Tropic Thunder." I especially enjoyed the trailer for "Scorcher VI," starring Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller). How did it go? "He made a difference five times before. Now he's going to make a difference again. But this time it will be different!" So the movie caught my attention right from the start. The actual story revolves around a collection of stars shooting a movie about the Vietnam War. Convinced that they're not giving it their all, the decision is made to drop the whole bunch of them into the jungle to let them get the feel of the place. It's sort of "Celebrity Survivor Extreme!" Into the mix comes a drug ring led by a Vietnamese kid who thinks the actors are DEA agents and sets out to eliminate them, but it takes a while for the stars to actually realize this is happening for real.
In all honesty, the movie wasn't hilarious. Amusing is probably more the word I would use for it. Stiller was good, as was Jack Black as "Jeff Portnoy," but the real gem here was an over the top performance from Robert Downey, Jr as Australian actor and 5 time Oscar winner Kirk Lazarus, who is nevertheless so desperate for a part that he undergoes pigment alteration surgery to become a black man. In the words of actor Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson): "they had one good part in here for a black man and they gave it to Crocodile Dundee!" Downey was superb here in a complicated part: after all, he wasn't a white man playing a black man, he was a white man playing a white man playing a black man! There's a lot of good fun contained in this movie. It may not be the greatest "spoof" movie ever made, but it's still a pretty good one. 7/10