A Bull and Cock Story

Rating: 9/10 (15 August 2008)

I haven't enjoyed a Hollywood within Hollywood movie like this since 'Tristram Shandy, a Cock and Bull Story." Which I had to see twice just to get all the inside the business jokes. Jokes and asides that flew fast and furious, making it one of the best movies of 2006.
'Tropic Thunder' is, without a doubt, one of the best movies of 2008 and might actually be a double double insider Hollywood movie. On the one hand it is just funny and gross and skewers everything and everybody who has ever worked in the 'business.' On the other it's a wonderful homage to Shandy. The humor mined from rival actors/celebrities interactions found in Ben Stiller's Tugg Speedman and Robert Downey Jr.'s Kirk Lazarus mirror that played out in Shandy's Steven Coogan and Rob Brydon as their screen lives and real lives and insecurities made for humor within and without the actual movie movie. Or is that the movie's movie movie? I don't think it was chance that Ben Stiller choose Steven Coogan to play the Director of 'Tropic Thunder.' It was sly genius.
Tristram Shandy, A Cock and Bull Story is a about trying to film a movie about an unfilmable book. 'Tropic Thunder' is a movie based on a faked war memoir, unread by the cast, the script unread by the leads, the movie made unfilmable by the actors' rivalries and the Director's incompetence. The Producer is going to pull the plug on the whole shebang until Tristram himself (Coogan) dumps the actors into the jungle to see if they can be all they can be. So the audience and the Director of the Director (Stiller to Coogan) can use for comedic effect the laws of Hollywood celebrity with its cellphones, producers, agents, G5a, and contract riders and the laws of the jungle..
Hmm, I hope that this isn't too confusing because the Tristram/Thunder connection makes a great funny movie even funnier.
Laughs, belly laughs, imagination, great fun, and up close seats to the Hollywood we think might be the real Hollywood. Cameos, satire, anarchy, totally non linear, totally unexpected situations, not a dull moment, which is the highest praise I can give in a year filled with so many witless boring comedies.
Go see it. Go see it twice. I'm betting it's even funnier the second time.
By the way, there is a lot of cock talk in the movie...and indeed, one bull.