Sly Thunder, despite Tom Cruise

Rating: 7/10 (16 August 2008)

Here's the big difference between Ben Stiller and Tom Cruise: Stiller possesses self-awareness, and Cruise does not. Oh, Cruise may attempt self-parody, but he never gives you the impression that he is aware he's making fun of himself - he seems to be saying, "Hey, I'm an actor, look at me act!" I've mocked Stiller many times. The guy's a ham, he's a bad actor, and his whiny, petulant behavior in almost every movie is annoying. But he does have a sense of what's funny. For example, when I popped Night at the Museum into the DVD player, I was sure it was going to be full of inept jokes and overexaggerated characterizations, and I was happily surprised, because he was the normalized center of a chaotic maelstrom.
And I will further admit that I had reservations about Tropic Thunder as well, since Stiller directed, co-wrote, and coproduced it. This can't end well, I thought, even with Robert Downey, Jr. and Jack Black along for the ride. But it IS good, and for an entirely different reason from Night at the Museum: Stiller, playing an overmuscled action hero, sends up not only the Rambos of the world but also his own high-maintenance, tightly wound on screen (and off) persona. He points and laughs at himself so that we may join in, and that's a level of self-awareness that only those with impeccable comic cred can pull off.
The story of Tropic Thunder goes like this. A director (Steve Coogan) of a big-budget Vietnam War movie, tiring of dealing with his prima donna stars (Stiller, Black, Downey, Jr.), allows the grizzled veteran (Nick Nolte) who wrote the book on which the movie is based to move the film shoot to the jungles of Vietnam, where the actors will be dropped to fight the real North Vietnamese in a prime, and punny, example of guerrilla film-making.
Apologies for that run-on sentence. Let me put on my Movie Voice-over Guy hat: "They came from a world in which they held all the cards. Now they find... they're all jokers." You can't beat Movie Voice-over Guy for plot summaries.
Everyone is perfectly cast. Stiller's character is coming off a series of action-franchise movies of declining quality and popularity. Black plays an Eddie Murphy clone in that he's best known for playing multiple characters in flatulence-embracing comedies. Downey, Jr. is an Australian superactor who's won five Oscars and who prepares for this movie by getting controversial pigmentation surgery to look like an African American. I know, I know, it sounds like he's dressing in black face, which is obviously and patently racist, especially in this day and age. Downey, Jr.'s Kirk Lazarus is known as a Method actor, a guy who gets deep, deep, deep into his roles, so he doesn't just walk the walk, he also talks the talk. Dude never breaks character.
But this isn't just a high-octane movie with pithy punchlines; it's a raunchy ensemble piece peppered with perfectly knowing, crisp dialog. Black, Downey, Jr., and Stiller all work very well together, and since they're essentially playing actor archetypes, you can easily buy what they're selling.
On a hugely positive note, check out the fake trailers before the actual movie of the most recent films completed by the lead actors's actors. On a hugely negative note, check out an almost unrecognizable Cruise as a studio head. Well, unrecognizable until he opens his fat (you'll see) yap. It's a completely pointless cameo that adds nothing to the film, instead distracting and detracting. I don't know who okayed his appearance here, and maybe he thought it would rejuvenate his image a little, but I hope we never have to see Tom Cruise in a fat suit again.
But. Leave that aside for a moment. The movie does rock out loud, as the kids used to say, and there's plenty of mayhem, and profanity, and yes, drug humor. I like movies that don't flinch, comedically, from envelope-pushing topics. Each actor plays his role to the hilt - including Matthew McConaughey as a laid-back agent - and, working in unison, they churn out a respectable, clever war comedy. Ignore the critics who say the movie is racist toward black people - it isn't - or that it's hateful toward the mentally challenged - it's not. It's easy to step over the line separating parody from mockery, and this movie dances on the line but never crosses it.