Review: Tropic Thunder (2008)
Written by: Brian J. Sumner
In Hollywood, satire can be a tricky thing. A director can receive a script that has an overall tone that looks to poke at and poke holes through glaring social or political issues. Sometimes those scripts are written in a way to accentuate and maybe even embellish the story of the characters they’re looking to satire. More times than not, there is a comedic edge to the satire that helps the person in the audience digest the message that is being conveyed. However, very seldom does satire walk up to the proverbial line in the sand, kick said line, and then proceed to stomp in a circle as if to say,
“HEY!! IM RIGHT HERE!! DON’T IGNORE ME!!”
Tropic Thunder would fall into the latter category. A 2008 film written, directed, and starring Ben Stiller, pushes so far past the boundaries of acceptable laws of satire that it starts to become something bigger than that style of film itself. The story follows a bunch of misfit actors cast to film a war drama set in a real, on-location jungle. The director of the film within the film, Damien Cockburn (played by Steve Coogan), has the brilliant idea of placing his cast in this jungle and setting up real gunfire and mortar explosions to give his hired actors the “real feel” of war, playing up to the ideas of method acting and professional actors “becoming” their characters. The only hitch in his plan is the jungle they chose to film in is actually overrun by local guerrillas looking to kidnap the lead star, Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller). Completely oblivious to the impending doom that surrounds the actors, they continue working their scenes as if the violence and chaos is actually part of the filming process and look to the “method style of filming” as inspiration to help fine tune their characters as they move through the filming of the drama.
To say the film has a loaded cast would be an understatement. We’ve already discussed Ben Stiller and Steve Coogan but as you work your way down the lineup, the talent within this cast of actors is insane! Jack Black plays Jeff Portnoy, who’s career is built on fart jokes and bathroom humor, and finds himself in the middle of foreign film territory being cast in a war drama (Oh, and we should probably mention his character has a bit of a drug problem). The legend himself, Robert Downey Jr., plays Kirk Lazarus, the ultimate in method actors! This is where the boundaries of satire begin to get dissolved into a blur of ferocious and ballsy writing because Kirk Lazarus is so method, he’s so into becoming his character, that he has skin pigment augmentation to make his skin color darker so he can portray the black character that he, a white man, has been cast to play in the film. Like I said....ballsy. There is also great casting of secondary characters with names like Danny McBride and Nick Nolte, but we can’t forget the performance by Tom Cruise (that’s right, I said Tom Cruise) as hardcore Hollywood executive, Les Grossman. Again, with his on-screen portrayal, you see the edges of satire being totally blown away as Les Grossman comes across more as a mafia kingpin than your average film studio executive, painting the picture that these film execs have more power and control than what’s at face value.
Tropic Thunder ©2008 Paramount Pictures
The writing is so damn smart and so damn good that it keeps you vested in the story from beginning to end. There are times that certain parts of the audience will find things offensive as you watch the movie and its certainly understandable. My advice when those feelings creep up?
Take a breath.
Pause for a moment.
Then realize this is just a movie, these are just characters, and this isn’t real.
The audacity of the actions of these characters within this world IS the joke of the movie and I think a lot of times that gets missed by the general audience who are more shocked by a few certain aspects rather than entertained and engaged by the overall film experience.
Tropic Thunder is and will always be a film that pushed beyond its boundaries and delivered a very funny and polarizing story that will be talked about for decades. You can’t deny the cleverness and the fearlessness of the writing (even with all the things that some would consider offensive) as it put a spotlight on the silliness of entitled actors, bully agents, and the pompousness of “an actor and his art.” Without question, the overall scope of the story and how it plays out from beginning to end, with its heavy shading of satire, will entertain you relentlessly and bring you back for repeat viewings.
Brian J. Sumner is the Host of Dude, What?!, author of The Secrets of Dr. Killiecrankie and is a dude, playing a Movie Review Dude, disguised as a Delivery Dude. . . it’s exhausting.
