US (2008): Action/Adventure/Comedy

It's not really a knock to say that nothing in TROPIC THUNDER is funnier than its first five minutes, so sly that -- especially for people watching in theaters -- you don't realize right away they are the opening minutes of the movie. This outrageous comedy begins with a series of fake previews, each introducing one of the main characters in the film-proper (not that there's anything proper about this film) and each bearing the familiar logo of a different motion picture studio: Universal, DreamWorks SKG, et al. Such playing fast and loose with corporate talismans verges on sacrilege, but it's an index of how much le tout Tinseltown endorses the movie as a demented valentine to itself.

The premise is that the cast of a would-be "Son of Rambo" movie shooting in some Southeast Asian jungle get into a real shooting war with drug-smuggling montagnards. Don't ask -- though the movie does have an answer -- why such highly paid, usually ultra-pampered personnel as superhero Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), Mozart of fart comedy Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), hip-hop artist Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson), and five-time Oscar^®-winner Kirk Lazarus from Aus-try-leeah (Robert Downey Jr.) should be running through the jungle unattended and very vulnerable. It matters only that the real-life cast has a high time kidding their own profession and flexing their comedic muscles. Bonus points go to Stiller for co-writing the script (with Justin Theroux) and directing, and to Downey, brilliant as a white actor surgically turned black actor for his role and utterly committed to staying in character no matter what ("I don't drop character till I done the DVD commentary").

Be warned: The movie, too, is committed -- to being an equal-opportunity offender. Its political incorrectness extends not only to Lazarus's black-like-me posturing but also Speedman's recent, Sean Penn-style Oscar bid playing a cognitively challenged farmboy -- or, in Lazarus's deathless phrase, "going the full retard." Others in the cast include Steve Coogan as a director out of his depth, Nick Nolte as the Viet-vet novelist whose book inspired the film-within-the-film, Matthew McConaughey as Speedman's sun-blissed agent back home, and Tom Cruise -- bald, fat-suited, and profane -- as an epically repulsive studio head. Two hours running time is a mite excessive, but otherwise, what's not to like? -- Richard T. Jameson, Amazon.com

Story by Ben Stiller & Justin Theroux; screenplay by Ben Stiller & Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen; produced by Stuart Cornfeld, Eric McLeod & Ben Stiller; directed by Ben Stiller. (DreamWorks SKG/Red Hour Films/Goldcrest Productions, Paramount Pictures - Official site)

 Visit The Screening Room to view the theatrical trailer for this film from YouTube.com.

1 nomination