Finishing off the summer with a bang, Ben Stiller co-wrote, directed and starred in the unapologetic R-rated (and Unrated here) 'Tropic Thunder.' It is a Hollywood satire so unrelenting in its tastelessness, you can't help but admire the go-for-broke mayhem that unfolds on-screen.
Directing for the first time since 2001's 'Zoolander', it seems Ben Stiller wanted to make up for lost time with clever satire under the guise of big-budget action/comedy thrills.
Taking the perfect, if sometimes uncommercial, target of Hollywood and skewering any number of topics from the duplicity of producers and agents, the pomposity of stuffy actors and just the inherent ridiculousness of the amount of money involved with what basically amounts to childish role-playing, Stiller fashions that rare film that will appeal to both your low and high brow sensibilities.
And despite a half-dozen major stars, or maybe because of, Stiller along with Justin Theroux and Etan Coen assembled a script that was almost guaranteed to offend, which took zeal in its effort to offend. Robert Downey Jr's now infamous and brilliant portrayal of a character in 21st century blackface along with 'Simple Jack', a "full retard" film that Stiller's action-hero actor is trying to recover from was pretty ballsy moves...particularly for a 100 million+ budgeted 'comedy'.
Although the 'Simple Jack' mock film did manage to cause a bit of controversy with advocacy groups calling for a nationwide boycott of the theatrical release, I imagine that 'bad buzz' only helped the box office. Of course, the sheer coarseness of the film provides the most agape laughs as we not only get some controversy-stewing subjects, but also extreme violence, clever language both sexual and drug-related and superstar Tom Cruise clearly relishing his chance to show off some villainous chops along with some truly wicked hip-hop dance moves (to Flo Rida's 'Low' no less...)
The framework of 'Tropic Thunder' basically boils down to 'Three Amigos' in the jungle. A rookie British director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) is helming the next big-budget Vietnam war movie based on the memoirs of John 'Four Leaf' Tayback (Nick Nolte) and is knee-deep in production on location in Vietnam.
Making up his cast is once huge action star Tugg Speedman (Stiller), whose desire to be taken seriously backfired with his shameless Oscar-grabbing effort 'Simple Jack', five-time Oscar winner Kirk Lazarus (Downey Jr.), an Australian-actor so method, he gets a 'pigment alteration' operation to play African-American soldier Lincoln Osiris and Jeff Pornoy (Jack Black), a chubby drug-addicted comic literally high on the success of the 'The Fatties', a pic about a fat-suit, flatulence-obsessed family.
Smaller but significant roles go to Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson), a hip-hop star mainly concerned with hocking his new energy drink, 'Booty Sweat' and the innocent young buck Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel) who is still naive enough to have some reverence for the whole 'acting' thing.
After Speedman blows millions of production dollars on a huge set-piece that he ruins by complaining about a crying scene, the power-hungry, wackjob producer Less Grossman (a heavily made-up, almost unrecognizable Tom Cruise) screams and threatens Cockburn from his Hollywood perch.
Cockburn, sick of his diva stars, takes the advice of 'Four Leaf', who suggests he drop them in the real jungle and capture it guerilla-style with hidden cameras. But it all hits the fan when the actors run across an actual Vietnamese heroin-plant run by the under-age regime Flaming Dragon. Speedman, not quite savvy, believes he's just dealing with other actors but by the end, the whole cast has to show their true colors...
The whole cast is at the top of their game here, no doubt about it, with Downey Jr. being the obvious highlight. Some of his monologues with Speedman such as 'staying in character till the DVD commentary' and the 'never go full retard' is a great combination of writing and thesping skills.
Close behind is Tom Cruise who takes a vulgar page out of his 'Magnolia' book and just owns the small amount of time he's on-screen – such as when he turns on Flo Rida's 'Low' and slowly takes in the music and starts to dance. If you don't become a full-fledged Cruise fan again, you got no business watching movies.
Everybody gets their time to shine, though with Black, Stiller, Jackson, Coogan, Nolte, Baruchel, Danny McBride (as the weapons/explosion expert) all pulling off some legitimate laughs. If something clever isn't happening with the script or performances, you always have an exploding head, severed limbs or geysers of blood to keep you entertained. If it had nudity, I would pretty much say that this film has it all.
A truly outstanding high-def transfer comes in the form of a 2.35:1 AVC MPEG4 1080p encode and the level of detail is amazing. A mostly bright jungle-set location with lush trees and vivid explosions, this makes for an almost live-action demo-worthy presentation.
The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless track is also predictably great with gunfire, explosions, the ambiance of a jungle all perfectly captured and coming through loud and crystal clear. Some great sub-woofer pounding sequences too...so go ahead and get that sorry neighbor note written out.
And with great video and audio comes great extras. First up is a pair of commentary tracks. The first involves Ben Stiller, Justin Theroux, Stuart Cornfeld, Jeff Mann, John Toll and Greg Hayden - this is more the 'filmmaking' track with more technical stuff discussed. The more fun track is with Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. (who as promised doesn't break character throughout the commentary!).
Next up is twenty minutes of 'Deleted Scenes/Extended Sequences' along with an alternate ending and are enjoyable if wisely cut. 'Before the Thunder' is a quick five-minute look at the origin of the project and the long-in-development script. 'The Hot LZ' is a short look at the action-heavy opening sequence.
'Blowing Shit Up' is six-minutes with the special-effects guy, 'Designing the Thunder' is seven minutes of set design info, 'The Cast of...' is 22-minutes and gives each of the cast a few minutes to talk about their characters, 'Rain of Madness', a half-hour 'mockumentary' that’s a lot of fun...essentially a parody of making-of's like 'Heart of Darkness'.
'Make-Up Test with Tom Cruise' is 2-minutes of Cruise dancing, 'Full Mags' is 10 minutes of improv footage and the funny 'MTV Movie Awards' skit finish things off along with BD-Live functionality.
Certainly my favorite comedy of the summer, if not the year, there's a lot of A-list talent up on the screen just having a blast with the unfiltered, clever script. It works as comedy, satire and action and very rarely makes a false step. The Blu-Ray disc looks and sounds fantastic with a nice amount of extras. Highly recommended.
Tropic Thunder (Unrated Director's Cut) [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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