Bringing the Thunder.

Rating: 7/10 (4 March 2009)

As gut-wrenching as APOCALYPSE, as heartfelt as RYAN, and as filthy as hell, TROPIC THUNDER is another in the small oeuvre of Ben Stiller writer-director-actor comedies where Stiller goes "full retard" for maximum satirical jungle juice.
Action movie juggernaut, Tugg Speedman (Stiller) and a platoon of spoiled-rotten actors, all from major-grossing films in various genres (Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., Brandon T. Jackson, Jay Baruchel) are having spoiled-rotten-actor issues while filming a cheddar-cheesy Viet Nam war movie with their frazzled director (Steve Coogan) - until their military consultant (grizzled Nick Nolte - that's kinda tautologous nowadays) suggests they be air-lifted into real jungle in Southeast Asia to man them up, whereupon Tugg is captured by real guerillas (whom he thinks are actors), with his platoon forced to use their cheese chops and fake props to save him.
We sometimes mistake Stiller for a mediocre talent when we see him as Actor Only in drab dishrags like MEET THE FOCKERS and ALONG CAME POLLY, or mediocre milestones like MYSTERY MEN and DODGEBALL - but we need to separate those acting-only jobs from his personalized writer-director-actor projects.
This is the same man who brought us the brilliant - yet too-quickly-canceled - THE BEN STILLER SHOW (1992) and after getting his directorial feet wet with the GenX throwaway REALITY BITES, his subsequent writer-director-actor output is from stellar left field: THE CABLE GUY (1996), ZOOLANDER (2001), and now TROPIC THUNDER.
THUNDER is a tribute to the poo-kicking industry of movie-making; self-effacement, narcissism and irony girds the script and fuels the characters: Stiller's Speedman is everything that Arnold and Stallone were, with ten times the hyperbole; Jack Black is heroin junkie Portnoy, with the fart-driven comedy franchise THE FATTIES; Brandon T. Jackson is hip-hop superstar Alpa Chino, with a soft drink line called Booty Juice; Jay Baruchel is the naive youngster starstruck just to be around legends; and under-used Steve Coogan is the flustered director who cannot control his movie stars.
Plucking references from APOCALYPSE NOW, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, PLATOON, the RAMBO series, THE DEER HUNTER, BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, the cinematography sometimes brushes up so close to those classics it is eerie.
Tom Cruise is the callous movie producer, who sees more profit in Tugg being M.I.A. than rescued. And he's very funny, in a very scary way. But it will take awhile to see through the heavy bald makeup and fat forearm prosthetics to recognize him. Matthew McConaughey, on the other hand, is the same surfer dude and Tugg's agent.
But the movie belongs to Robert Downey Jr. For once that comedic force of nature known as Jack Black does not steal the show. That award must go to Downey for, ironically, playing a black. He is simply astonishing as an Australian, Kirk Lazarus, an actor so immersed in Method that he undergoes "skin pigmentation" to play the role of an African-American, in a nod to that Hollywood idiocy of placing white movie stars in non-white roles.
At first it's seems like a joke - but Downey goes deep. And never lapses. He IS The Black Man. He inhabits the skin of Lazarus so fully that most of his lines are ad-libbed - and sound authentically black! He lives the black vernacular, the black swagger, the black inflection... I'm sure African-Americans would pick his slipups (as I pick his fake Australiana when he lapses into that character) - and the actual black guy on set, Alpa Chino, continually lambastes him for racism - but the completeness of Lazarus's transformation is magnificent and gutshock hilarious.
When Tugg accuses Lazarus, "You people are always complaining..." he counters with "What do you mean 'you people'?" To which Alpa retorts, "What do *you* mean 'you people'?"
Tugg's previous, Oscar-tilting role was in SIMPLE JACK, a starring role where he played a retarded man, yet lost the Oscar. Lazarus advises Tugg he shouldn't have gone 'full retard': "Check it out: Dustin Hoffman - RAIN MAN, look retarded, act retarded, not retarded. Counted toothpicks, cheated cards. Autistic? Sho'. Not retarded. Tom Hanks - FORREST GUMP. Slow? Yes. But he charmed the pants off Nixon and won a ping-pong competition. That ain't retarded..."
In an inspired piece of screen writing, the SIMPLE JACK subplot, the classic war films and this film's opening scene itself all come together to create a satirical yet somehow tear-jerking climactic scene.
If Hollywood could make more movies like this one, maybe movies lambasting Hollywood like this one wouldn't have to be made.
--Review by Poffy The Cucumber (for Poffy's Movie Mania).