Outrageous entertainment

Rating: 8/10 (14 September 2008)

Tropic Thunder disgusts you, tickles you, pricks you, entertains you and exhausts you all at the same time. Comedy is the underlying theme with an unlikely star cast that gets together on a film shoot in Vietnam. This film is a satirical comedy on Hollywood's immoral acts, a spoof on war movies, an insulting drama of co-actors within the film, a disgusting look at the gruesome aspect of war, crude, merciless and yet, outrageously funny. Unlike most Ben Stiller and Jack Black movies, Tropic Thunder is wickedly smart at being nonsensical. That itself is a rare combination.
The smaller the hint, the better it would be so just make sure you watch the previews before the film. The opening scene is a parody of war films like Platoon, only a lot more guts spilling around combined with amputations. Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller) lays wounded with over 100 bullets in him with Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.) splashing his spit and tears all over Speedman in a scene so tragic that the director calls 'cut'! This of course is a location shoot for Tropic Thunder, which is a film based on a memoir by an odd Vietnam veteran.
Speedman is a dimming movie star with his retarded role in 'Simple Jack' claiming ridicule rather than an Oscar. Kirk Lazarus is a methodical Australian actor with a handful of Oscars and his commitment to his performance shows as he undergoes pigment therapy to get into the character of the black soldier with a lame accent that only infuriates the real black soldier, Apha Chino (Brandon Jackson). Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) has played a spoof on Eddie Murphy's disgusting comedies of farts and fats but has a real, massive drug addiction during the shoot in Vietnam. Apart from Downey Junior's riotous performance, where he gets so deep into the character that we forget he played the Ironman, Tom Cruise as an obscene and nefarious producer is striking. With a bald wig, hairy chest, pot belly and a tongue that lashes at everything that comes his way, Tom Cruise is not only unrecognizable but also unbelievably good at his comic role that makes him one of the boys in this ultimate showdown of witty humor and nonsensical gibberish.
The writers and director ensure enough bombardment of ridiculous ideas, blasphemous dialogue, racist jokes, unpolitical behavior and offensive nature of Tropic Thunder to keep the audience hooked on. The film is mindless and how! Slapstick humor that is mostly over the top and a true example of the spontaneity in the director's mind must have been the scene where the film's director gets blown up to pieces while the cast thinks it's all part of the plan of live film making! Disgustingly funny..
Such scenes along with R-rated dialogues based around some witty comedy make Tropic Thunder a unique fun time at the cinema. Tom Cruise's cursing abilities and wickedness turns so nasty at one point that he even scares the murderous rebels in Vietnam over the phone! Robert Downey Jr.'s performance is laudable simply because you forget that it is him! Even when Tropic Thunder's camera is off, he is still into that character and we see him as the Australian for only a few seconds. With a heroic Rambo style climax, Tropic Thunder blasts at you with this concoction of bluntness, blasphemy, slapstick, gruesomeness and absurd humor that is sure to make you laugh inspite of all that it makes you go through in Vietnam.

8.081 on a scale of 1-10.