Wick's Review

Summary - Great 4.0

Plenty funny, at least 60% LOL, yet as with all brutally rude modern comedies, the other 40% induces winces and groans. Still funny is funny, and this sucker brings the laughs.

Much is being made of how the movie makes fun of the retarded. But why stop there? It also makes fun of blacks, Jewish studio execs and Vietnam War vets, to name just a few protected groups. (OK, so studio execs aren’t protected.) IOW, as with politically incorrect comedy since the days of Lenny Bruce, if you’re not ready to laugh at sacred cows, stay out of the slaughterhouse.

Tropic Thunder marks Ben Stiller’s ascension to the A-list of comedy auteurs. While a big star for years, he’s never written, directed and starred in a movie this funny or fully realized.

Helping him along are instantly legendary performances by Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise, who prove their star power works easily in this deeply satirical territory.

Acting - Great 4.0

Robert Downey Jr.‘s Lazarus-like rise continues with his turn as Kirk Lazarus, a world’s greatest actor in the Robert De Niro mold, here going to great lengths to play a black sergeant. Applying his trademark verbal dexterity to hilarious effect as the self-serious Sgt. Osirus, Downey steals every scene he’s in.

Tom Cruise’s performance as Les Grossman, studio exec badass extraordinaire, startles as it tickles. Tom Terrific goes all in here, plump in the gut, bald on top, and full of sexually charged bluster. Presumably channeling his inner Harvey Weinstein, Cruise helps rehabilitate his own self-serious image problems with this brutally funny bit.

The other big stars are fine, as expected. Ben Stiller long ago perfected the art of appearing as a more attractive star than he really is, just as Nick Nolte long ago typecast himself as a bombastic man’s man.

Matthew McConaughey steps out a bit as self-absorbed Hollywood agent Rick “Pecker” Peck. He’s always looked the part of the Hollywood opportunist (other than that mop of hair atop his head), now he plays one to a tee in Tropic Thunder.

Bill Hader delivers yet one more perfectly funny turn, building on his remarkable run of success in Pineapple Express, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Superbad, and Knocked Up. If I’m a Hollywood comedy producer, I don’t see how I can’t include this guy in my next movie. He’s solid gold.

Another now proven supporting actor appearing here is Danny McBride, currently also knocking ’em dead in Pineapple Express.

Film - Very Good 3.5

The movie mocks Hollywood and its contrivances. Loud music, huge explosions, sickly realistic FX, it’s all here. It helps to have seen a few episodes of Entourage, not to mention the Vietnam movies directly satired (Apocalypse Now and Platoon most especially) to appreciate all of this, but like Shakespeare’s great comedies, you can equally well appreciate the show for its gut level humor.

Edge - Risqué 1.7

Latex is used extensively to simulate guts, torn skin and other aftereffects of brutal violence. While it’s all in good clean fun, be warned.

Reality - Glib 1.5

Hollywood action movie tricks are laid bare, from prosthetic guts to bombastic music to TiVo in the trailer.

As to whether a few actors shooting blanks can overpower a drug army possessing real automatic weapons, well … don’t be a sucker, sucker.

Finally, I guess the Vietnam War really is behind us, since Tropic Thunder proves we’re now capable of laughing at what was so traumatic for so long.

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