Apocalypse Whoa!

Rating: 9/10 (13 October 2008)

Satirizing Hollywood is one of the oldest habits in the movie-making industry. Now, with Entourage and Extras doing a fine job on the small screen, is a bigger, meaner film version really necessary? According to Ben Stiller, writer/producer/director/star of Tropic Thunder, the answer is a resounding yes, and his gamble seems to have paid off, given his fourth directorial effort is one of the craziest, funniest comedies ever made on the subject.
Stiller claims he got the idea for the film the moment he made his debut in movies, playing a supporting role in Spielberg's Empire of the Sun. Not that he has anything bad to say about Spielberg: the inspiration for Tropic Thunder is rather to be found in the troubled makings of Coppola's Apocalypse Now and Michael Cimino's ill-fated Heaven's Gate, which were delivered way behind schedule and went severely over budget. Coppola's film, and war movies in general, are the pretext Stiller uses to point out how messed-up the film-making system is.
Tropic Thunder recounts the attempt to complete the eponymous picture, a true story set during the Vietnam war (a brief scene from the film-within-the-film spoofs Platoon's signature moment). After four days, the production is already a month behind schedule. The reason seems to be the bitter arguments between the pompous British director, Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan, who may have modeled his performance on co-writer Justin Theroux's work in Mulholland Drive) and the big-name cast, introduced through fake trailers before the actual movie begins: Tugg Speedman (Stiller), an action star whose one shot at serious acting, the Forrest Gump-like Simple Jack, was a massive flop; Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), a foul-mouthed, heroin-addicted comedian, famous for the Fatties franchise (think The Nutty Professor with Portnoy replacing Eddie Murphy and playing multiple roles); Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), a five-time Oscar-winner whose Method madness makes De Niro look like an amateur (he undergoes a surgical operation to become African-American for the sake of a role); and Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson), a talentless rapper-turned-actor.
Since the frictions between Cockburn and the actors are damaging the picture, the film's screenwriter (Nick Nolte) suggest the following: dump them in the jungle all by themselves and place cameras in the trees to capture their "performances", guerrilla-style. The director complies, only to abandon his spoiled "disciples" in a zone controlled by a drug cartel. Naturally, Speedman assumes the criminals are just extras, and at this point it's too late to go back: the proverbial thing is about to hit the fan.
Stiller's previous film as a director, Zoolander, was a PG-13 send-up of the fashion world. With the movie business, such a tame approach will never work, and that's why Tropic Thunder is a comic triumph: it goes for the full, R-rated madness and excess. How else can one depict the overblown "achievements" of Hollywood? Nothing is sacred in the universe imagined by Stiller: alongside the usual "troubled shoot" gags, everything else gets blasted as well: Method, Oscars, franchises, studio megalomania, Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD - you name it, you'll find it. It's all there, in a mix whose appeal lies in its explicit, fearless absurdity.
The excess in style (there are more explosions in one scene than in Tony Scott's entire filmography) is complemented by the same ingredients when it comes to dialogue and acting: obviously helped by his Emmy-nominated self-deprecation in Extras, Stiller has no problem coming up with the most outrageous things for his characters to say, yet, given the context, everything sounds so alarmingly true ("I don't read scripts. The script reads me" Lazarus says). As for the performances, the leading trio couldn't have been better: Stiller, Black and Downey Jr. are always at their best when faced with larger-than-life types, the latter especially enjoying his career resurrection after Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Zodiac and Iron Man (the "never go full retard" sequence alone should get him an Oscar nomination). Nolte and Coogan deliver the expected goods too, but the best stuff in Tropic Thunder comes from those who appear less: as Speedman's moronic agent (imagine Ari Gold from Entourage and sweeten him just a little), Matthew McConaughey is really entertaining for the first time in I don't know how long, and then there's the icing on the cake, namely a certain Tom Cruise, whose four-scene appearance as a bald, overweight, sweary producer ("I will massacre you! I will f*ck you up!") almost immediately qualifies as his best work since Magnolia.
Tropic Thunder is loud, overstuffed and rude, which might turn off some viewers. But hey, that's exactly the point: between the fake blood, Black convulsing, Stiller going bonkers, Downey playing an African-American and Cruise, in a fat-suit, cursing and dancing, there's not one dull moment in its 107 minutes. It's the most fun, politically incorrect comedy of 2008 - a live action equivalent of South Park.