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Tropic Thunder (R16, 107mins) Directed by Ben Stiller ****
Dodgeball, Meet the Fockers, The Heartbreak Kid.
By 2008, Ben Stiller had fashioned an acting career out of playing passive-aggressive, more-than slightly obsessive blokes. Less well known was his skill behind the camera.
Reality Bites and The Cable Guy might not have been the biggest box-office hits of the ’90s, but they were movies that gained loyal followings. But not nearly as much as Stiller’s 2001 directorial project Zoolander. A remake of The Manchurian Candidate-cum-pastiche of the modelling industry, it gave the world endlessly quotable dialogue (“Have you ever wondered if there was more to life, other than being really, really, ridiculously good looking?”) and Will Ferrell.
Seven years on and Stiller found himself back in the director’s chair, turning his attention to taking the mickey out of his own industry.
Here, he plays fading action-star Tugg Speedman. Described as a “white dwarf heading for a black hole”, Speedman’s career is on a downward slide. His last blockbuster Scorcher 6: Global Meltdown failed to fire, while his attempt at drama, Simple Jack, failed to garner him the kind of accolades afforded to Tom Hanks or Dustin Hoffman for similar roles.
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Fifteen years on, the gleefully un-PC Tropic Thunder is still one of the most hilarious Hollywood comedies of the 21st Century.
Desperate for a hit and to be taken seriously, he’s joined an all-star cast for the action-drama Tropic Thunder. It’s based on a real-life incident involving 10 soldiers’ attempt to rescue their buddy Sergeant Four Leaf Tayback from the Vietcong. Only four survived, three wrote a book, two got published and one, Tayback himself (Nick Nolte), got a movie deal.
The film has Oscar potential written all over it, but a troubled shoot means it could more likely be known as the most expensive movie never made.
The main problem is that rookie British director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) is having trouble controlling his stars. Speedman’s lack of depth is frustrating five-time Academy Award-winning Australian actor Kurt Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), whose own commitment to method acting, which has this time included pigmentation alteration surgery to allow him to play an African-American, has infuriated soft-drink-schilling rap star Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson).
Meanwhile, chemically enhanced comedian Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) is battling his own demons.
The cast’s lack of chemistry has already cost millions of dollars and the production is in danger of being shut down. The only solution to keeping costs under the control – and eliciting the right performances – is to go guerrilla. So Cockburn packs up his cast and drops them into a valley of death, rigged with hidden cameras. That’s when things begin to go apocalyptic.
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In Tropic Thunder, Tom Cruise delivers one of his most-unhinged performances ever as Hollywood movie mogul Les Grossman.
Right from the preceding fake advertisement for Chino’s drink Booty Sweat and three hilarious faux- trailers, Tropic is a relentless pastiche of the Hollywood dream factory. Obvious targets like Platoon, Full Metal Jacket and The Deer Hunter are side-swiped, but it’s the indefatigable poking at Hollywood sacred cows that really delights. Lazarus is a barely disguised Mel Gibson/Russell Crowe hybrid, while Portnoy is clearly inspired by Eddie Murphy. A Jerry Maguire-esque agent appears in the form of Matthew McConaughey, while Tom Cruise steals scenes as a foul-mouthed, balding studio mogul.
Teaming up with Justin (nephew of Paul) Theroux and King of the Hill writer Etan Cohen, Stiller’s script, allegedly inspired by his experiences making Empire of the Sun, is packed to the gunwales with a rapid-fire stream of gross-out gags, dead-pan lines and movie-making in-jokes (Lazarus claims to not drop character until he has done the DVD commentary).
As with Zoolander, plenty of one-liners ended up becoming part of the cultural zeitgeist (“He’s the Milli Vanilli of patriots”).
Gleefully un-PC, Tropic is still one of the most hilarious Hollywood comedies of the 21st Century.
Tropic Thunder is now available to rent from Neon, iTunes, YouTube and GooglePlay.
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