Is it possible for a movie to be too ‘inside’? Can its farcical focus on the very industry that supports it reach beyond the studios and the suits to become a memorable mainstream hit? That is obviously what Ben Stiller is hoping for with his new showbiz satire Tropic Thunder. As much an attack on the pompous and privileged stars at the centre of contemporary cinema as it is on the bloated and often unwieldy way they earn their keep, this may be the first popcorn comedy that plainly – and repeatedly – bites the hackneyed hand that feeds it.
For three Hollywood heavyweights, the film adaptation of Vietnam vet Four Leaf Tayback’s (Nick Nolte) war bestseller is rapidly spiralling out of control. Action hero Tugg Speedman (Stiller) is having a hard time digging up the requisite emotion, while Australian method actor Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr) actually has some ‘controversial’ plastic surgery to up the authenticity. Pulling up the rear – literally – is fat funnyman Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black). After appearing in a collection of crude yet profitable comedies, the borderline junkie wants to go legitimate. Along with rapper Alpa Chino (Brandon T Jackson) and bit player Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel), these celebrities fall victim to Tayback and director Damien Cockburn’s (Steve Coogan) scheme to add realism to the project. The plan? Take everyone into the Asian jungle and shoot it, guerrilla style. The problem? A deadly drug cartel.
Tropic Thunder is one aggressive Tinseltown slam. If it wasn’t created by certified A-list talents trading on both their reputations and their reasons for being, it would be career suicide for all involved. With enormous chutzpah and more than enough laughs to keep the uninitiated happy, this clever combination of spoof and infotainment autopsy will probably soar over the heads of your average moviegoer. This is not to say that one needs some special knowledge to enjoy Downey’s amiable minstrel show, or Black’s heroin-withdrawal wildness. Yet the more you understand the mechanics of Hollywood and how films are financed and controlled, the greater your appreciation of what Stiller, who co-wrote the screenplay with Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen, is after. You may not laugh more, but you’ll definitely understand the film’s more insular attributes.
Most of the pre-publicity has focused on two aspects of the production. One is the character of Kirk Lazarus and his decision to go black face to play the platoon leader. While that is never wholly offensive, it was wise to add Jackson’s voice of rap reason to the company. He keeps the hate crimes to a bare minimum, while offering his own damning cultural deconstruction of what’s going on. The other aspect is the supposed cameo by a famed Scientologist with a questionable middle-aged career arc. Well, let’s settle the score once and for all – Tom Cruise steals every scene he is in (and there are many) as the foul-mouthed financier Les Grossman. Readily recognizable in a hairy fat suit, he proves more than adept at high concept comedy.
Oddly enough, the most compelling presence here is FOA (friend of Apatow) Baruchel. Required to do most of the heavy exposition, he is great as the newbie tossed into a self-centred mega-superstar mix. With Stiller proving he can easily handle such outsized material (the movie begins with four of the best trailer/ad parodies ever!) and excellent assistance from Nolte, Coogan, and a surfer-dude-delightful Matthew McConaughey (as Stiller’s agent), Tropic Thunder is a good time gut buster. While not as strident as The Player, or as psycho-philosophical as The Stunt Man, this remains an unapologetically brazen celluloid slur – that is, of course, if you get what it’s going for.
Bill Gibron |
