Tropic Thunder

Review By: Michael Dance
MichaelDance@TheCinemaSource.com

With Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen, and their gang suddenly the new kings of comedy in Hollywood, it was an open question what would happen to what the internet used to call the Frat Pack: Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jack Black, and all those guys. They've mostly done stuff on their own in the past couple years, and the results (The Heartbreak Kid, Fred Claus) have been box office disappointments. The tastes of the moment -- again, thanks to Apatow -- seem to have shifted toward low-budget, dialogue driven films with mostly unknown actors.

Perhaps that's what makes Tropic Thunder -- a big-budget action comedy with stars all over the place -- so much fun.

Seriously, this is just a cut-and-dry case of having a really good time at the theater. Kicking off the fun before the movie even starts are three fake "previews" and one ad which introduce us to the main characters in the film -- full-of-themselves actors starring in a movie called, you guessed it, Tropic Thunder. Ben Stiller is Tugg Speedman, a fading star with a once-popular action franchise. Jack Black is Jeff Portnoy, an Eddie Murphy-like comedian with movies like The Fatties: Fart 2. And Robert Downey Jr. is Kirk Lazarus, a five-time Academy Award-winning Aussie so serious about acting that he undergoes pigmentation surgery in order to play an African American -- and never breaks character.

That's not to mention the rapper-turned-actor played by Brandon T. Jackson, brilliantly named Alpa Chino, and the newcomer hot off an indie, Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel, who come to think about it comes from Apatow's gang).

The five actors are all starring in a Vietnam epic called, you guessed it, Tropic Thunder, which after only a few days of filming on location is already way over-budget and behind schedule. Fed up with his self-obsessed actors, the director (Steve Coogan, soon to be seen in Hamlet 2) decides to teach them a lesson by shooting the whole thing guerrilla-style: dropping them off in the middle of the jungle after planting a few cameras, and making them shoot the movie themselves.

Who would think anything can go wrong? Soon the actors are noticed by some very real Vietnamese drug lords, who mistake them for DEA agents, and before you know it they're fighting real enemies while still thinking they're only making a movie.

The writing is consistently sharp and funny when it could easily become lazy. Lazier writers would stretch that concept for the length of the entire film and make all the actors complete morons. Stiller (who, wow, also directed) and his co-screenwriter Justin Theroux let them figure out they're not in a movie anymore, which opens up opportunities for some terrific scenes, like when Lazarus tries to convince Speedman that that severed head he's holding onto is real. Lazier writers would make the agent character (a cameo role written for Owen Wilson but played ...