Tropic Thunder
starring Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey, Jr., Nick Nolte, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, Matthew McConaughey and Tom Cruise
screenplay by Justin Theroux, Ben Stiller and Etan Cohen
directed by Ben Stiller
Rating: ♦♦♦
It’s hard to imagine a ruder, more politically incorrect and offensive movie. I loved it! My son and I were guffawing until our stomachs hurt. I watched it twice and still laughed. There is a lot of typical Ben Stiller stuff here - juvenile and silly. But it’s good. (Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Mike Myers and Will Farrell are all cut from the same comedic cloth. Sometimes I like them - a lot - but usually they really annoy me.)
Tropic Thunder is a spoof of Vietnam War movies. It’s a spoof about all movies in general, and actors as well, but the Vietnam War genre in particular. By far my favorite character was movie producer Les Grossman, played by Tom Cruise. It’s possibly the best acting I have ever seen from Cruise. His character was so funky!
Tropic Thunder is not about the war. It is about the actors who tried to make a movie about the war. The director is failing miserably to control his stable of egomaniac actors. So to get control and get the film back on schedule he decides to take the cast into the jungle and subject them to harsh conditions as they are forced to hike back to their hotels. But along the way the cast gets caught up with armed drug lords and they don’t know they are in a really dire situation. The idiots think everything that happens is just another director’s prank, following a script and being filmed.