Tropic Thunder

What's kind of movie is better then a movie about making a movie? How many opportunities do you get to use the same noun three times in one sentence? Not many. Tropic Thunder represents the blood and guts of the entertainment industry. It is a satire of all the antics that goes on in Lala Land and I want to be apart of it. Whether it's an actor surgically changing his skin color to get into the mind of his next character or a hyper agent fighting to get TIVO in his client's trailer, Tropic Thunder takes the self-absorbed behavior the world has come to expect from actors and clump it into one giant Thunderdome of personality clashing.

Tropic Thunder is in fact a movie about the making of a movie. Movies like Platoon and The Great Escape and Saving Private Ryan have professionals come in and train the cast on how to act like real soldiers. In this case, the director (Steve Coogan) takes over that role and ends up being decimated by a live mine in the field. The actors, obviously linking this to special effects and therefore not real, continue into the dense jungle only to find themselves in conflict with a local druglord, whom they believe are actually extras, reinforcing actors' complete and total disregard for reality.

The audience experiences the absurdity of the cast of Tropic Thunder from minute one. We meet Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson), the rapper turned actor. Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), the fat comedian looking to turn his career around after taking one too many snorts of the White Elephant. Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), an actor who has been in more sequels, prequels, and sequels to sequels then any other actor in Hollywood. Finally, there is Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), by far the funniest character in this movie. Lazarus, a pasty white male, has taken the challenge of playing the black sergeant. For the entire movie, Lazarus is painted black and if that subtle hint of racism doesn't give the audience a laugh, I don't know what will. And it's not just that he is a white man playing a black man; Downey Jr. speaks with this southern accent that sounds so forced and so hilarious, even the most simple words are genius. "Cover me, limp dick fuck-ups!" "I'm just like a little boy, playing with his dick when he's nervous" "Everybody knows you never go full retard" I mean, these lines are just classic. His raspy southern drawl brings out every emphasis and I love it! If you see this movie for one reasons only, it should be because of RBJ's performance.

Tropic Thunder pokes fun at just about every war movie ever made. No exaggeration, this movie comes at other movies' necks. Apocalypse Now had a short film that tagged alongside it, Hearts of Darkness, that chronicled the behind the scenes footage of the making of Apocalypse Now. Tropic Thunder has a short film, Rain of Terror, that documents the behind the scenes footage of the movie they were making in Tropic Thunder. Rain of Thunder is as funny, if not funnier, then Tropic Thunder itself. Shit, I only mentioned it poking fun at one movie. Damn, I lost all credibility.

You are guaranteed to laugh during Tropic Thunder. It has humor that appeals to just about every social/political/economical group in the world. When it isn't cussing out the big, money grubbing production companies, it's insulting cinema's impact on the environment. For a kid who wants to make it big in the movie biz, this is the kind of stuff that I awkwardly smile at. I want to be that director who pulls out his hair because his leading actor hasn't memorized his lines. I want to be the writer who shoots the director in the hand for not sticking to script. See this movie.