The summer movie season comes to an end in a big way with Tropic Thunder (DreamWorks), Ben Stiller’s first directorial effort since 2001’s hilarious Zoolander.
In case you haven’t heard, this is the movie that has been causing all of the controversy lately, some of it due to the fact that Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man) plays Kirk Lazarus, an Australian actor who darkens his skin to play an African American drill sergeant.
In defense of the film, it is spoofing Hollywood, not promoting the use of blackface. Kirk Lazarus is an award-winning actor who goes to great lengths to win awards (think Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan in I’m Not There) and goes a little too far for his role It is even addressed in the film that he is going over the line, especially when he stays in character when they aren’t filming.
Tropic Thunder is a movie about a group of actors filming an expensive Vietnam War film (also called Tropic Thunder). The film they’re making stars Speedman and Lazarus, as well as Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black, Be Kind Rewind) a comedian with drug problems, Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson, Roll Bounce) a rapper-turned-actor and pitchman for ‘Booty Sweat’ energy drink, and Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel, Knocked Up) a young actor who is the only grounded one of the bunch.
The action starts with the fictional Tropic Thunder months behind the production schedule after only a few days shooting. Desperate to save the film, the films’s inexperienced and frazzled director, Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan, Night at the Museum), decides to take the advice of the Vietnam War veteran serving as consultant on the set, ‘Four Leaf’ Tayback (Nick Nolte, Hotel Rwanda), and put the boys in the middle of a Southeast Asian jungle to get the film made the right way. Things go awry fast, and drug smugglers soon capture Speedman. It’s up to the rest of the actors to save him.
Tropic Thunder is an action comedy that fires on all cylinders and is worlds funnier than the other big action comedy of the summer, hit stoner comedy Pineapple Express. The movie leaves no part of Hollywood unscathed and delivers nonstop laughs. The dialogue is smart, the humor is raunchy and even the action and explosions are good. It is no easy feat to make a film about the film industry that the average Joe can relate to, but Tropic Thunder succeeds where movies like Bowfinger and For Your Consideration failed.
Though there are certainly great performances all around, one can’t help but give the most accolades to Robert Downey Jr., whose portrayal of Kirk Lazarus, as well as the African American Sgt. Osiris, is brilliant and the second best of the summer to Heath Ledger’s Joker of The Dark Knight. Downey’s comeback keeps getting better, with Iron Man a success and The Soloist still on the way this year.
Also of note, Danny McBride plays a special effects technician named Cody. The up-and-comer has a minor role but utilizes it to the fullest, delivering some of the film’s funniest lines.
The slew of cameos, notably Matthew McConaughey and Tom Cruise (yes that Tom Cruise), add to the hilarity to make Tropic Thunder the best comedy of the summer.
