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'Tropic Thunder': Hilarious Bungle in The Jungle

By Daniel Montgomery

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

“The best way to criticize a movie is to make another movie,” said French director Jean-Luc Godard. If that’s the case, I needn’t have reviewed ‘Step Brothers’, because Ben Stiller has done it for me. As the co-writer, director, and star of ‘Tropic Thunder’, he has made a film that is everything ‘Step Brothers’ was and wanted to be: loud, ribald, strewn with expletives, and based around characters of shocking self-involvement, but also funny, smart, and unexpectedly endearing. It’s savvy about its subject and rewards its equally savvy audience — and really, in this age of Entourage and TMZ, isn’t everyone an expert on the ins-and-outs of ego-driven Hollywood?

The opening minutes are very cleverly devised. We are introduced to the four main characters via advertisements, and it’s alarming not only how credible these ads are, but how clearly they describe the career and public persona of each. The first is a commercial for a soft drink called Booty Sweat and a snack bar called Bust A Nut, both produced by rap star Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson), and I’m not sure I want to see the list of ingredients. The remaining three are film trailers. Tugg Speedman (Stiller) is the star of Scorcher VI, the latest in a fading action franchise. Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) plays multiple characters in The Fatties: Fart 2. And five-time Academy Award winner Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.) seems to have his sights set on a sixth; his upcoming film, Satan’s Alley, is apparent Oscar bait, and its trailer suggests Atoneback Mountain.

An Access Hollywood segment completes the setup. Speedman is “on the wrong side of forty” and desperately needs a hit to keep his career afloat. Portnoy cashes in on lowbrow comedies to feed his drug addiction. And Lazarus, a blond-haired, blue-eyed Aussie who takes Method acting past its breaking point, undergoes radical pigmentation surgery to portray an African-American. Does it say something about Hollywood that these three archetypes are so quickly established and easily identified? Or that they’re so plausible? It surely says something about Stiller, who demonstrates a keen understanding of modern pop culture in how precisely he aims his satire.

Speedman, Portnoy, Lazarus, and Alpa Chino are the stars of Tropic Thunder, a big-budget epic about a rescue mission during the Vietnam War. It’s directed by an incompetent theater vet, Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan, who will be seen later this month as another tortured artist in the equally funny Hamlet 2). It’s produced by megalomaniacal executive Les Grossman (Tom Cruise, hilarious and nearly unrecognizable). And it’s based on a book by Four Leaf Tayback, the man who lived the events being depicted. Tayback, as played by a joyfully self-mocking Nick Nolte, is one of my favorite characters. All profound declarations and dramatic lighting, he looks and sounds like the subject of a reality show produced by Oliver Stone. When asked what kind of gun he carries, he answers, “I don’t know what it’s called. I only know the sound it makes when it takes a man’s life.”

During the making of the film within the film, things go horribly awry, as they are wont to do. The actors encounter a heroin operation and must conduct a real rescue mission when Speedman is captured. The film is slightly less interesting when it goes through these motions of the plot; I prefer the Hollywood-based humor, like the scene where two characters discuss historically how to win accolades by playing mentally challenged.

Downey Jr. is worthy of special note. His decision to play this character, a white actor playing a black man, might have been very brave or very foolish, depending on the result. It works because the comedy comes not from the makeup or the mannerisms but the character, whose crude racial insensitivity is a product of his neurotic attempt to inhabit his role. Equally important is having Alpa Chino, who is actually African-American, to play off of him; he is naturally offended by Lazarus’s stunt, and having him as counterpoint gives us license to laugh.

As for the performance, it’s a small miracle. Downey Jr. establishes both personas so completely that we hardly notice him acting, though clearly he is acting — hard. It’s one of the best comic performances of the year, and it beats most of the dramatic ones too.

The fifth member of the unit is Kevin Sandusky, played by Jay Baruchel in a deceptively pivotal role. Kevin is rational and thus acts as the straight man to his company of buffoons. Without him, the competing antics of his co-stars might become tiresome, but his perpetual bemusement provides balance and enhances the comedy. ‘Step Brothers’ needed a character like Kevin: a voice of reason.

‘Tropic Thunder’ is very similar to ‘Hot Fuzz’, a nearly perfect action-movie spoof from last year, but isn’t quite at the same level: Ben Stiller’s directing is broad to the point of nearly spinning out of control, and it might have gone haywire if it weren’t for his inspired cast and script (co-written with Justin Theroux and Ethan Cohen). For instance, a gag about Speedman’s agent rushing to get him TiVo in the jungle goes further than it needs to. But the agent is played by Matthew McConaughey, who is so game that he very nearly makes us forget ‘Fool’s Gold’. What more can we ask than that?

Check out ‘Tropic Thunder’ Official Site