Tropic Thunder Movie Review!

Tropic Thunder is neither your typical war action movie, nor is it your average satirical comedy.  It’s a movie within a movie, with actors within actors within characters, getting lost in the plot while getting lost within the jungle.  Despite the tangled mess Ben Stiller and crew weave, it’s still a fun journey riddled with laughter and bullets.

Tropic Thunder is a novel about a group of grunts that made it back from a grueling escapade during the Vietnam war that is being turned into a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster.  The problem is, the director is spineless, the actors are divas, the effects guy blew up the biggest effect while cameras weren’t rolling, and the movie is in danger of getting canned for being over budget and behind schedule.  The tough-as-nails (or is it hooks, in this case?) novelist suggests that the director abandons all the flash and pomp and gets back to the simple nitty-gritty to whip the actors back into shape.  They helicopter-drop the actors into the middle of the jungle, unwittingly in the midst of heroin producing gang territory.  The actors, believing that all the gunfire and terrorist kidnappings are part of the plot, must get through the jungle and back to reality with as little casualties as possible.  It’s a difficult task, especially when the plot gets a little too convoluted, but in the end everything comes together and gets out of the mud for a nice, funny finish.

Ben Stiller, the movie’s writer/director/star, plays Tugg Speedman, the hard-bodied but soft-brained action star whose career is suffering a slow burn after a series of less-than-average movies.  Robert Downey Jr. steals the show as Kirk Lazarus, the Oscar-winning method actor so serious with immersing himself in the skins of his characters that he loses himself in the role, including his blackface revival of Sgt. Osiris.  Jack Black, not really diversifying much from his real life persona, plays the drug-addled flatulent comedian Jeff Portnoy.  Brandon Jackson plays rap tycoon Alpa Chin who never misses an opportunity to branch out either with movies or selling Booty Juice.  And Canadian homeboy Jay Baruchel plays geek Kevin Sandusky, whose brains save the day, even if his co-stars can never get his name right.

The movie is also riddled with cameos, some greater than others.  The increasingly popular Danny McBride is a surprisingly capable pyrotechnic engineer, but falls a little flat with the humour.  Nick Nolte is Four Leaf Tayback, the not-quite shell-shocked auteur whose book the movie is based on.   Matthew McConaughey does what he does best, playing the goofy pretty-faced agent Rick “The Pecker” Peck.  Surprisingly, the funniest cameo of all (at least in this reviewer’s opinion) is by Tom Cruise, but I’ll save the surprise of what was so laughable about his Les Grosman.

Slapstick shticks aside, Tropic Thunder pokes fun of classic war movies of the past, like Platoon or Heart of Darkness, with great gusto while still coming off as an homage to the genre.  It makes fun of the gangbusters process of making a big-budget film, especially when it becomes a bigger budget film than the studios anticipated.  Nothing is safe from Stiller’s skewering finger, from money-grubbing studio execs, vain directors attempting to be genuine “for the sake of the movie,” actors of all types, and even to self-important effects directors.  There’s enough barb to go around for everyone, and the audience is left to revel in it.  If anything, it’s a great movie to bust out your Animal Mother replica helmet, strap on a few faux grenades, and hole up in the theatre with some friends for a funny, wild ride.

Read Jb’s blog here!