Madness to The Method: Frequently hilarious send-up of Hollywood ego run amok

Rating: 8/10 (18 August 2008)

TROPIC THUNDER (2008) *** Ben Stiller, Robert Downey, Jr., Jack Black, Steve Coogan, Nick Nolte, Jay Baruchel, Brandon T. Jackson, Danny McBride, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Cruise, Bill Hader (as themselves: Tobey Maguire, Jon Voight, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jason Bateman, Lance Bass, Alicia Silverstone). Frequently on-the-mark satirical comedy taking potshots at the film industry and Hollywood egos with sure-footedness by Stiller (who directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen) about a group of primadonna actors on location filming a Vietnam film leading its fed-up director (Coogan) to have them 'experience' the reality they are filming which leads them into uncharted waters when they wind up in the middle of an Asian drug war zone. Downey rises above the rest of the cast as the arrogant, Method to the madness Aussie actor who has a procedure turning his skin black to portray the African American soldier in the picture, by walking the fine-line of PC and blackface vulgarity with deft aplomb. However the one-joke gimmick begins to run on vapors by the final act.