Well, I Laughed Anyway

Rating: 6/10 (12 February 2013)

Ben Stiller as an actor annoys me. He's too one-note and often shallow, making a poor fit for the derivative concept movies Ben Stiller the scenarist devises. Fortunately, Ben Stiller the director seems to have enough talent and good comic sense to bail the other Bens out sometimes.
Such a film is "Tropic Thunder."
Tugg Speedman (Stiller) leads a cast of coddled stars acting in a Vietnam war movie who have run their production a month behind schedule...in just the first week. Director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan), facing dismissal, opts to plant his actors directly in the jungle, away from their handlers and expensive distractions. Everything, of course, goes wrong.
What exactly goes wrong is something I don't want to spoil, except to say that viewers of "Galaxy Quest" and "Three Amigos" will recognize the situation. It's neither original or freshly delivered, though the fate of the frantic Cockburn did surprise me. As is the case with other Stiller films I've seen, we get a plot that exists only as a minimal structure for laugh lines and sight gags. Judd Apatow and Adam McKay make the same kind of comedies, but they seem to go for more audience engagement and character development than I see Stiller doing.
Stiller's strength is that he's a funny guy, and, in this movie, does a solid job developing an ensemble feel with his fellow actors. Robert Downey Jr. got most of the notice (and an Oscar nomination) as Australian method actor Kirk Lazarus who opts to play an African- American with the help of a special operation that amounts to blackface. He's so committed to his part he vows not to break character "until the DVD commentary."
Actually, in reality Downey didn't even do that until the commentary was nearly over. He presents a very funny character who talks entirely with lines lifted from a 1970s Blaxploitation thriller, like "Ain't nothing but a thang." He takes offense when someone says "you people" to him, meaning of course annoying method actors.
"What do you mean, YOU PEOPLE!" he demands, eyes glaring.
"What do YOU mean, you people!" asks the one actor on set who really is black, Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson).
The back and forth between these guys is really well delivered, with Jack Black getting in some fine lines and reaction shots as the strung- out star of a series of obnoxious fatty "Klumps"-style comedies. There are some first-rate bits throughout, particularly an over-the-top opening action scene where the ample bloodletting is played for laughs and a discussion between Kirk and Tugg about the merits of not going "full retard" when assaying a mentally challenged role.
This, like Kirk's racial identity issues, could have stuck Stiller in Mel Gibson Land but instead comes off as successful satire. It's really the dog-eared story and Stiller's struggle to justify his star billing with a Derek Zoolander retread that make "Tropic Thunder" just a fun time-waster rather than an absurdist comedy to remember. You will laugh, but you may not remember a thing about this film a week later.