Tropic Thunder

Opening Date: 08/15/2008

STUDIO: Dreamworks

TRAILER: Trailer

ACCOMPLICES: Official Site

The Charge
Get some. 

Opening Statement
Before The Dark Knight captured the mania and hysteria of the summer, the season’s runaway success was that of Iron Man and its star Robert Downey Jr. The film’s $300 Million box office success has opened every possible opportunity for the actor, and since a second Iron Man is a virtual certainty, the only question is what he’ll do next. So yeah, star as a critically acclaimed actor in a Vietnam war film, while wearing blackface. Seems only logical right?

Facts of the Case
Ben Stiller (The Heartbreak Kid) and Justin Theroux came up with the story, which Stiller directed. The film’s hero is Tugg Speedman (Stiller), an action star of a franchise whose recent films have been poorly received both critically and at the box office. His attempted dramatic crossover films have also failed. Hi co-star, Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black, Nacho Libre) has been a franchise star as well, however his films, called The Fatties, are simply nothing more than bathroom humor where Jeff plays all the characters. Think the Klumps from the Eddie Murphy Nutty Professor films, except with more farting. Jeff has a bit of an addiction problem as well, and has been arrested on occasion where he’s acted up. Speaking of acting up, the dramatic star is Kirk Lazarus (Downey), winner of several “Crying Monkey” statues, along with every other acting trophy under the sun. His is a method acting of the highest order. To play Lincoln Osiris in Tropic Thunder, Lazarus dyed his skin black and took on a Detroit accent (of sorts) for the role. When the film’s production falls out of budget and time, their technical advisor (Nick Nolte, Hotel Rwanda) suggests to the director that the boys be taken away from their creature comforts and dropped in the middle of the jungle with limited contact to the outside world. The film documents what occurs afterwards. 

The Evidence
I was fortunate enough to catch an advance screening of Tropic Thunder in San Diego the night before Comic Con started, and it was a surreal experience to say the least. After a filmed introduction to the film by the stars (exclusive to San Diego crowds and which will no doubt make the DVD), the film’s experience is designed to get you to buy into the characters as much as possible. Trailers for the ‘fake’ stars’ films will air before the feature, along with a commercial for “Booty Sweat,” the drink that another one of the film’s stars, Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson, Roll Bounce) markets. Then you’re dropped right into the shiz, so to speak.

In advance press for the film, Ben Stiller has said, in several places (notably Playboy) that “There was something so ironic and funny about actors talking about how hard it was to go off to boot camp for two weeks for a movie about a war when it obviously had nothing to do with the real experience of war.  It might have been my own bitterness about not getting parts in these movies, but I did think there was the seed of something in the irony of actors taking themselves too seriously.  Maybe this movie is my revenge. “  This revenge, combined with the observations made in the film, makes Tropic Thunder as enjoyable as it is. Don’t get me wrong, there’s some humor at its base elements, where Speedman encounters severed heads of humans and animals which, within the context of the bit, is a little on the disappointing side, but other jokes designed to poke fun at Hollywood’s expense are quite good.

Speedman’s agent, Rick Peck (Matthew McConaughey, in the role Owen Wilson was due to play before his suicide attempt) is a supporter of all things Tugg, but when he’s presented with a moral quandary choosing between his longtime client and friend and the wealth and luxury of a Gulfstream jet, things become muddied. He wants no part of the jungle, but when Tugg isn’t given his contractual obligation of a TiVo at his temporary jungle residence, that’s when things start to hit the fan. Oh yeah, the guy who presents Rick with this dilemma? That would be Lee Grossman, played with some prosthetics and a bald cap by Tom Cruise. Yes, THAT Tom Cruise. As the fictional Grossman, Cruise plays a loud, profane alpha dog of a man, a studio boss with no time to dispense platitudes, but will woo anyone over to the dark side if it will advance a greater good, and throw them under the bus if they get in his way. Cruise swears, dances (almost worth the admission price alone with all the makeup), and in a particularly funny sequence near the end of the film, congratulates and chastises executive Bill Hader (Superbad) within the same sentence. What little time he spends on screen isn’t wasted, and there’s usually a bellylaugh or two to be gained from watching him.

Much of the film’s jokes and dialogue are on the guilty laugh / cringeworthy side. When discussing Speedman’s failure with the film Simple Jack, Lazarus says that the failure of the role was because he didn’t temper his character’s mental deficiencies, using a funny yet oddly logical argument that puts Rain Man and I Am Sam in some context. Downey’s African-American inflection borders a little bit on the Kingfish side of things, and when Chino starts to belittle all things Aussie, Downey (as Lazarus) defends them, and does so as Osiris to boot. When one of the cast members is found out to be gay, Portnoy, in an attempt to feed his addiction, talks in detail of what he would do with him if he could be allowed to get drugs.

If there was something that could be considered a little bit on the weakish side, it would be the story within the film. Getting to the last battle sequence seems to drag a little long. Even at 1 hour and 47 minutes it’s about 10 minutes longer than the film should be, but the performances are still excellent. Stiller’s actual Vietnam story seems to lean quite a bit on Apocalypse Now, with Tugg acting as Colonel Kurtz, while Lazarus, in blackface, wears white makeup in an attempt to break him out. Yes, he’s white, made to be black, then white again. Got it? Black tends to ham it up a little, but his hamminess does have a slight edge to it, and Downey is no C. Thomas Howell (Soul Man). The lines are funny, he stays in character even after the camera stops rolling, and although McConaughey took over Wilson’s role, it’s hard to imagine anyone else doing it. It’s the best portrayal of an agent I’ve seen since Martin Short in The Big Picture. And Cruise damn near steals the film in the limited screen time he has.

This kind of material is something I’d been wanting to see Stiller do for ages. He got close to it in the early ‘90s, but I think with age, perspective, and given the chance to go all out, he could make an excellent and hilarious satire of Hollywood as it’s laid out right now. Tropic Thunder is a great first step towards that destiny, if he chooses to take it.

Closing Statement
Tropic Thunder does a couple of things for me as a moviegoer I didn’t think were possible. First, it made me pretty much absolve Ben Stiller for all the cinematic sins he’s committed through the years. Second, (and this is the bigger one) never, NEVER did I think that Tom Cruise could be so biting and hilarious. This is the funniest performance he’s ever given, in part because it’s so blustery and without depth. Combine that with a hearty dose of politically incorrect humor and a finger in the eye to the Hollywood establishment, and you’ve got a winning comedic formula. Tropic Thunder stands to be the highest-grossing comedy of 2008, and with everything that happens here, it’s worth the ride.

The Verdict
Come for Downey, stay for Cruise and the jokes. It’ll be well worth your time.

9/10

Approximately nine months ago, my wife brought up an interesting proposal: “Why Don’t We Go to San Diego for Comic Con?” This was without virtually any prompting on my part; I had no horse in the race, so to speak. I’m not that big of a comic book fan, but we were looking for something to do. So why not go, right? And if you’re going to go, go in style; I booked a room at the newly opened Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego, which seemed like a pretty cool status symbol. Aside from an experience at the franchise’s New York restaurant years ago, I did forget that the Hard Rock plays music. All the time. But, compared to other places, it was rock music. The merchandise shop played Black Flag in there, so booyah bitches!

Anyway, the film lineup was pretty good, and I’ll be sharing those here after the jump of the films I managed to sit in on. I’m sure the webs have the footage somewhere, so feel free to search on your own time. On with the opinions!

The Day The Earth Stood Still: Fox was the first to the show, and Keanu Reeves (The Matrix), Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind) and Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose) came out to pimp the remake of the 1951 classic to be released in December. It was discussed, sometimes at great length, with a couple of shots from the film, and an extended trailer. No, we didn’t get to see Gort, but WETA is doing the work on him now, and things are still very close to the vest. Aside from Connelly being VERY much out of place, barely talking, I’d come in fresh to this, and personally am still wondering why it’s being remade to begin with.

Max Payne: Mark Wahlberg (The Departed), Mila Kunis (Forgetting Sarah Marshall), Chris Bridges (a.k.a., the artist formerly known as Ludacris) and John Moore (The Omen) discuss the film which is coming out in October. Wahlberg clearly had fun and played up to the crowd, and everyone talked about how fun it was to do it, meaning how cool it was to fire weapons all day. Moore talked about their own little version of “bullet time” that was employed for the film. Aside from an extended trailer cut to a live version of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love,” this was a bit of a yawner.

Wolverine: Ole Wolverine himself Hugh Jackman came onstage as an unannounced surprise to throngs of delirious hysterics. After shaking the hand of Len Wein, the creator of the comic book icon, Jackman was happy to finally actually be onstage, as he’d apparently missed the X-Men presentations that occurred in previous Cons.  I’m going to rattle off the cast here; Ryan Reynolds (The Nines) as Deadpool, Liev Schreiber (The Sum of All Fears) as Sabretooth, Tim Riggins from Friday Night Lights as Gambit, to name a few who appear in the trailer. And it’s loaded with action too, which doesn’t hurt. Definitely the one people will be looking forward to in ‘09, unless the GI Joe teaser comes strong.

As a side note; what was particularly interesting about the Fox presentation was that a lot, and I mean A LOT of people got in early so they could be ready for Summit Pictures’ presentation of Twilight. Everyone around my wife and I was there in their “Team Edward” and “Team Jacob” shirts, whatever that means, but unfortunately I was called away for other events. I’m told though that the Twilight footage was essentially an extended version of the second trailer with the climatic ballet room sequence, and everyone ate it up. As they should I suppose. But I thought it was a little funny that the Fox gang seemed to trot out their products to hordes of Twilight fans, without knowing what they were getting into. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Watchmen: Try as I might to stay away from the masses, I snuck in for a second, where Zack Snyder (300) and the cast were discussing the film. Aside from an extended trailer, more shots of the heroes were shown which really illustrated Snyder’s vision and faithfulness to the source material, and since this is being released in March, expect some more mad money on a Snyder production.

The Spirit: Frank Miller (Sin City) might be an influential comic book figure, but he needs to lay off the liquor or something. At times he seemed to ramble, and cast members Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction) and Jaime King (Blow) seemed to notice. Still though, the footage that was shown of the film looks good, done visually much in the same way that Sin City was. While there’s humor, there are also a couple of required action sequences that look impressive as well. A concern I have a little with this film is that it might not seem to possess the spark of similar comic book films that possess a similar visual style, but I hope I’m proved wrong in this because at least from what I saw, The Spirit could potentially be a good film.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno: Showed up a little late to the game on this one, as I was drinking with some of the cast of ABC Family’s Samurai Girl, which appears to be a Buffy-ish show, except without some of the wit and wisdom. But I will say this about Kevin Smith, he’s got some fans in the biz, for sure, and now in this film, he’s got a couple members of the Judd Apatow stock company in Seth Rogen (Knocked Up) and Justin Long (Accepted) together in this film that looks pretty funny. Bonus points for Long’s, er, “moment” with Brandon Routh. Yes, that Brandon Routh, from Superman Returns. Aside from listening to Rogen’s kind of funny Ian McKellen joke and Jason Mewes looking very impressive all cleaned up from addiction, Zack and Miri comes out in October hopefully, and should be worth the hubbub, even if they might have to change the title.

Terminator Salvation: You know, Christian Bale and Bryce Dallas Howard(?) aside, McG seems to carry himself as a bit of a pompous arse. Why exactly would we want to see a film about a battle with first-generation terminator robots? Why would Arnold Schwarzenegger even consider appearing in this? Ugh. To be fair, McG (Charlie’s Angels) likes paying homage to the previous three films, even including attendees who dressed like Robert Patrick and Linda Hamilton from T2 on stage with him, along with an Asian kid whose Arnold accent seemed to venture into Walken-esque territory. He showed an extended teaser of sorts, without any CG shots in it, and the results? Meh. I counted nods to The Road Warrior and The Great Escape in there, along with something that looked visually a little like Charlie’s Angels, right now to the hot chick almost taking her top off. I’ve got to say I liked the teaser in front of Dark Knight more than I did this stuff, and unlike some of the buzz so far, am concerned that this “reboot” might nuke the franchise from orbit.

Pineapple Express: Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to sneak into the preview screenings that apparently were going on in town, and the footage that Judd Apatow (40 Year Old Virgin), Rogen and gang brought seemed a little to be desired. It seemed like they basically brought stuff from the website or something. One of the scenes came from the Superbad DVD. But come on, you know what this film is going to be about, you’re either going to go see it or you’re not. Oh, and Green Hornet is still on the track of getting made, so yay to that.

Well, that’s the short story on the film side. A quick note on things to come, expect a review of Tropic Thunder in the very near future, along with TV Verdict thoughts from the Heroes and Lost panels, including some teasing of Heroes 3^rd season, as the opener was aired in its entirely exclusively for the Comic Con folks. Until next time, get the funk out your minds and into your hearts people!