BEN STILLER’S latest comedy is funny – but not always in a “ha-ha” way.
Written and directed by him, Tropic Thunder tells the story of a bunch of self-absorbed actors caught up in a real conflict while making a war movie in Vietnam.
It opens up the chance for leads Stiller, as action-movie star Tugg Speedman, Jack Black as heroin-addicted comic Jeff Portnoy and Robert Downey Jnr as method actor Kirk Lazarus, to mock the behaviour of pampered thespians.
What is amusing is how desperate Stiller and Co seem to distance themselves from their own breed. The sub-conscious cry is “We are not like this lot — it’s those other stars. We can laugh at ourselves. Look!”
Which misses the fact that you would have to be absorbed by your own fame in order to make a film about fame.
And in the process of examining his Hollywood obsession, Stiller often forgets about the audience.
There are too many spoofs of other movies, including Apocalypse Now, which deserves better, while the “retard” gags that caused uproar in America just aren’t funny.
It’s tempting to describe Stiller and Black as a shower but they’re too lacklustre for that. A light drizzle is more apt.
Tropic Thunder also suffers from being released just a week after Pineapple Express.
Two goofball action comedies in two weeks is one too many. Downey deserves credit, though, for pulling off the potentially offensive act of playing a white actor playing a black man.
It works because Lazarus’s stereotyping is amusingly punctured by genuine black actor Alpa Chino (played by Brandon T Jackson).
And there are other memorable moments, too. The opening spoof movie trailers are great, Steve Coogan’s death is a blast and Tom Cruise blows them all away with a cracking cameo.
All Cruise has to do to outwit Stiller is go bald and fat and swear like a “mother******”. Now that is funny.
BEST LINE: Tugg’s action-film trailer voiceover, saying “The man who made a difference five times before is about to make a difference again, except this time it’s different.”
BEST CHARACTER: Cruise as ruthless film studio boss Les Grossman.
FAMILY RATING: Adult language and comic violence.
BUM NUMBNESS: Worth sitting through the credits.
RATING OUT OF FIVE: 3
RELEASE DATE: September 19 2008
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