Tropic Thunder (2008)

Starring: Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Cruise, Nick Nolte, Steve Coogan, Danny McBride, Jay Baruchel, Bill Hader, and Brandon T. Jackson, with cameos from Tobey Maguire, Christine Taylor, Maria Menounos, Jason Bateman, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Alicia Silverstone, Yvette Nicole Brown, Sean Penn, Jon Voight, Martin Lawrence, Tyra Banks, and Lance Bass
Grade: A

Tropic Thunder may not be as funny as you remember it on a rewatch, but the commentary and critiques of Hollywood and its stars are just as relevant and entertaining as ever. Plus, it’s one of the best ensemble casts you’ll ever see in a comedy.

Summary

In one of the more creative openings to a film you’ll ever see, we are introduced to our main characters with short introductory clips. The first is a commercial for rapper Alpa Chino (Jackson) promoting his new energy drink “Booty Sweat”, along with his “Bust-a-Nut” energy bar. Secondly, we get the trailer for the sixth entry in the popular action movie franchise Scorcher, starring action hero Tugg Speedman (Stiller). This one is Scorcher VI: Global Meltdown. Next, we see the trailer for The Fatties: Fart 2, a comedy starring comedic superstar Jeff Portnoy (Black) where he plays all the characters of a family in crazy cosmetics, costumes, and fat suits. Lastly, we see a trailer for serious drama Satan’s Alley, starring five-time Academy Award winner Kirk Lazarus (Downey Jr.). It’s about two gay monks in a forbidden relationship in a 12th-century Irish monastery. The other monk is played by Tobey Maguire.

Next, the movie actually begins with a caption and narration saying, “In the winter of 1969 an elite force of the U.S. Army was sent on a top-secret assignment in Southeast Vietnam. The objective: rescue Sgt. Four Leaf Tayback from a heavily guarded NVA Prison Camp. The mission was considered to be near suicide. Of the 10 men sent, 4 returned. Of those 4, 3 wrote books about what happened. Of those 3, 2 were published. Of those 2, just 1 got a movie deal. This is the story of the men who attempted to make that movie.”

Over in the Quang Tri Provence, Vietnam, the shooting for the movie Tropic Thunder is underway. We see the filming of the climax of this big-budget Vietnam film, and we see all the aforementioned stars being major parts of the cast of characters. The two biggest stars of the film are Tugg Speedman and Kirk Lazarus. Tugg is playing the main character of Four Leaf, while Kirk is playing black Staff Sergeant Lincoln Osiris. We see the trouble right away as Kirk’s over acting in a crying scene forces Tug to ask to cut, but director Damien Cockburn (Coogan) refuses because they have a timed explosion about to happen. Damien, Kirk, and Tugg all argue as trigger-happy explosives expert Cody Underwood (McBride) waits for the go-ahead to signal to ignite the explosion. After Tugg asks the real-life Four Leaf (Nolte) if he cried in real-life when this event happened and he says no, Tugg asks for a rewrite. This pisses off Kirk, still fully in character as Osiris, and he walks off to go to the bathroom. As Damien flips out, Cody sees this from his watch tower and considers this the signal. The massive $4 million explosion is miscued and causes the entire production to go over budget and a month behind schedule. The media is having a field day with this mishap too because the camera wasn’t even rolling when it happened.

As we see on an edition of Access Hollywood, host Maria Menounos tells us how this won’t bode well with the hotheaded executive who financed the movie in Les Grossman (Cruise). This whole situation puts them a month behind schedule, despite them only shooting for five days, and it’s all blamed on first-time director Damien. He’s dealing with some of the biggest stars in the country, and they all have next-level egos. It also doesn’t help that Jeff Portnoy is fresh off a recent drug possession arrest and was considered almost uninsurable. Tugg watches this news report on television as the story continues. They shift to talk about the real media firestorm revolving around Kirk Lazarus, the Australian bad boy method actor who underwent a skin pigmentation alteration procedure to play the black Osiris. Lastly, they touch on Tugg himself. Menounos trashes the former highest grossing star in the world for his most recent Scorcher movie not doing too hot. Additionally, he’s also given shit for a failed buddy comedy where he plays a woman alongside Martin Lawrence, and a failed trip to dramatic territory with his role of playing a mentally impaired farmhand who can talk to animals in Simple Jack. The latter was a box office disaster and considered to be one of the worst movies ever. Menounos doubts the success of whatever Tropic Thunder may become, as it’s already on track to be one of the most expensive movies ever made.

You can tell it hurts Tugg to see this report, but he’s interrupted by a phone call from his agent Rick Peck (McConaughey). The always enthusiastic Peck gives Tugg a pep talk to outshine Kirk’s overacting since Tug expresses how mad he was at the situation. However, Peck gets mad when hearing that Tugg’s TiVo wasn’t installed yet because he fought for it in his contract and promises to get it for him.

Meanwhile, Damien is called in for a “crisis meeting” by Studio Executive Rob Slolom (Hader) to talk with Les Grossman. They go to the meeting, with Grossman appearing via computer. He demands the key grip punch Damien in the face, so the guy does. As he yells at Damien for fucking things up, Damien counters with how bad of prima donnas his actors are. The real hook-handed Four Leaf (Nolte), the veteran who wrote the book in which the movie is based on, chimes in and suggests they drop the actors in the real jungle to make men out of them. After Grossman tells Four Leaf to shut the fuck up, he demands Damien get things under control, otherwise he’s shutting him down. That night, there’s a party to celebrate the first week of filming being done. At the party, he calls for a cast meeting and is able to get Kevin Sandusky (Baruchel) to join him without an argument. He’s a normal, level-headed actor living off residuals for an anti-herpes medication commercial, so he’s loving the fact he was able to land such a big role in this film. In fact, he’s the only one who auditioned and the only one who did the two-week bootcamp. Damien tries to gather the other actors, but their minds are elsewhere. A frustrated Damien walks away from the party to the beach. He wanders over to Four Leaf who’s by himself. He demands Damien do justice to his story. To do this, he once again suggests the actors get thrown into the real jungle. At the same time, they can place cameras everywhere and give all the explosives and such to Four Leaf and Cody. This way, they can mess with the actors and the realism of it all will make magic on film.

Damien agrees, being inspired by the potential of this guerrilla-style way of filming.

The next day, Damien is dropped off in the jungle with his actors, no crew members or assistants in site. He takes all of their cell phones and destroys them. He tells them their objective is to head north to the D’ang Kwook River and “liberate” the POW camp. There, Tugg, playing Four Leaf, will get himself “captured” and the rest of the cast will “rescue” him. Then, they will fly them home. Damien gives Tugg the map and the scene list. He tells the actors ahead of time that they have rigged the jungle with cameras. Additionally, he himself will be filming from unseen vantage points. After hitting them with a rousing speech about the real danger they will face and how they’re about to make the greatest war movie ever, Damien turns and accidentally steps on a land mine. It kills him and blows his body into pieces. Funnily enough, Tugg is fully convinced this was a special effect from Damien used to scare them. On top of all of this, they were dropped right in the middle of the Golden Triangle. This is where the Flaming Dragon gang resides, a large group of violent heroin producers. They are alerted of the landmine going off and travel to the source to investigate. From the bushes, they observe Tugg messing with the dead body of Damien and think he’s some real-life insane U.S. soldier. Even so, they’re told to get them dead or alive. As the Flaming Dragon move in, this whole situation lines up with the scene they’re shooting, so Tugg collects the men and goes right into character to film.

Kirk still insists Damien is actually dead, but Tugg questions why Kirk would stay in character if that were true.

This is where Kirk admits he stays in character until he does DVD commentary.

They get into a shootout with the Flaming Dragon gang and since they think it’s a scene, Tugg and the crew shoot their blanks at them and act like maniacs. Tugg launches a grenade at them too. From a distance, Four Leaf and Cody decide now would be a good time to use the explosives they set up since they hear the gunfire, so they ignite some C4 just as Tugg throws the grenade. It momentarily scares off the gang. However, they will be back. Now, Tugg continues on his mission with the others to make this awesome movie, but egos start to flare up between him and Kirk over what they should do next. What we know however, and what they will eventually find out, these actors’ lives are legitimately in danger.

My Thoughts:

A pure takedown of the “movie star”, celebrity culture, and the insanity of the executives in charge in Hollywood, Tropic Thunder shows us how you make a real satire. It’s a screenplay covering every inch, with each character being modeled after real-life personalities and events that have come to define the pretentiousness and outrageous behavior of the people who work to entertain us and make millions in doing so. At the same time, it’s still a highly entertaining action comedy with an all-star cast fully committed to making this crazy tale as fun as possible.

It’s fun analyzing each of our main characters, trying to pinpoint the types of people or situations that may have inspired them. With Ben Stiller’s Tugg Speedman, the highest grossing actor in the world who ran his action franchise into the ground with his abundance of sequels, while trying and failing to expand his repertoire elsewhere made me think immediately of someone like Sylvester Stallone. Though Stallone never went into Simple Jack territory, his run in the 1990s, after he took a break from Rocky and Rambo, made me think of where Tugg took his career. Do you guys remember Stallone’s attempt to branch out with comedies like Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot or Oscar? It lines up really well. You could even compare the reception to Scorcher VI: Global Meltdown to Rocky V. By the end, this movie is looked at as Tugg’s comeback in terms of critical acclaim in a dramatic role which you could easily compare to Stallone in Cop Land, Rocky Balboa, or even in more recent times with movies like Creed. With Tugg trying to go far off and pick something completely different from his usual choices in roles with Simple Jack, you can see he was shooting for an Oscar but was so far off, his performance was seen as a joke. It’s a reminder of how actors can become movie stars and forget the actual art of the craft when in seek of accolades, glory, and attention.

How many actors/actresses have we seen go for the type of role that could pull the heartstrings on paper, in hopes to be taken seriously? It happens all the time, and Ben Stiller (along with the rest of us) has seen the pretentiousness for years, giving us a character that is a hysterical send-up of this type of star. Stiller playing up the insecurities of the action hero trying to look as good as possible in scenes was icing on the cake. I’m glad Stiller chose himself to captain this movie because he not only parodied this type of actor well, but he brought along the energetic “Frat Pack” humor with it.

Also, Tugg losing his mind in the jungle was not only expected but very funny to watch play out. When he starts going full Brando and freaking out Kirk during the shootout, I was loving every second of the madness unfolding.

Jack Black’s Jeff Portnoy is clearly modeled after Eddie Murphy, as The Fatties franchise is a very obvious parody of The Nutty Professor series that has annoyed people for years. The drug addiction part goes hand in hand with most comedy stars from yesteryear too, so it all adds up. Black is fully committed too and is great in his supporting role. Brandon T. Jackson is very good as the insecure rapper who’s trying to crossover into film while finding ways to market himself in every which way possible, and Steve Coogan was a solid choice to represent the inexperienced director, Damien Cockburn. They say Damien’s troubles are modeled after Richard Stanley’s with Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer while filming The Island of Dr. Moreau. We can definitely see this in the short amount of time Damien has to deal with the egos of the stars. However, there’s a strong parallel with the chaos that ensued on the set of Apocalypse Now too, only it’s amped up to the extreme here for comedic purposes. It’s great, and you can see a lot of detail was added to make this a fun parody of the trouble an on-location shoot can be when you have maniacs to deal with in front of and behind the camera. What happened on the set of these two troublesome productions were practically dying to be made into a comedic film. Tropic Thunder capitalized on the golden opportunity and nailed it!

Lastly, there’s the excellence given to us by a fully devoted Robert Downey Jr.

He is fantastic as Kirk Lazarus, the prototypical method actor who refuses to break character, despite the fact he’s a real-life white Australian playing black Staff Seargent Lincoln Osiris. Watching him interact with the others and try to be the voice of reason while he stays in character as a black man is outrageously funny. It’s even better when Alpa Chino flips out on him when needed, with Kirk still not missing a beat. He fully believes in the character and has gone to great lengths to trick himself into believing he’s Osiris for the shoot. He’s a multi-time Oscar winner, so the others can’t argue with his ability, but they all think he’s a jackass for still acting like he’s black even in the most heated of moments. At one point, he acts as if he’s a Chinese rice farmer to infiltrate the Flaming Dragon camp, but he’s so far gone, he still speaks in the voice he was doing for the character of Osiris. This takedown of method acting is perfect. I loved it. People may not like the use of some of the language, the whole Simple Jack thing, or the blackface of Robert Downey Jr., but I can tell you with full confidence that whoever has criticized these elements of the film did not watch it. They saw it out of context and had hate in their chamber ready to fire. If you watch the film, the satire of Hollywood actors using mentally impaired people for accolades, or method actors going too far to get into character to “become them” is clear as fucking day. I don’t know how many times people have to explain this online to others.

The satirical elements of the screenplay is incredibly thought out. Re-watch the “You never go full retard” scene and tell me this observation isn’t spot on no matter what you think about the language.

It shouldn’t be hard to understand either. It’s not like this is written where you have to have a certain level of understanding of the real life behind-the-scenes of filmmaking. As movie fans, we are very aware of the stuff Ben Stiller and company are lampooning and that’s why Tropic Thunder works on so many different levels. Yes, it’s an action comedy, but there are layers to the humor. You just have to pay attention a little to understand the joke. If you still criticize these elements of the story after watching it, there’s truly no hope for you. Just watch a Hallmark movie if you can’t appreciate this level of writing.

Being in on the joke is important to making this script work, and Robert Downey Jr. was a big part of this movie’s success. We know the man is friends with loads of method actors he based the crazy character of Kirk Lazarus on, and he played it to perfection. Being one of the very few movies where he wasn’t playing Iron Man for that whole decade or so, it may have been forgotten about when referring to Downey Jr.’s best performances, but I assure his role of being a “dude playing a dude, disguised as another dude” is one of his all-time best. If Heath Ledger didn’t give us his iconic turn as the Joker in The Dark Knight that same year, I would argue Downey Jr. would’ve been holding that Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Everyone in the movie has a sense of humor about the craziness of what’s going on, and it’s infectious. Tom Cruise making fun of the angry Hollywood executive who’s volatile, overly vulgar, and takes himself way too seriously is hysterical. We’ve heard the horror stories of the real-life Hollywood executives that have ruined lives, and I can’t help but think the character of Les Grossman is a flawless parody of said people. I didn’t even realize Cruise could let loose like this. The man was unexpectedly hilarious. It’s got to be his most underrated role ever, mostly because it’s the first time he plays a role that isn’t a version of himself. He was unrecognizable and got completely entrenched in the horrible unpredictability of the character. Cruise was an addition you’d never think to be in a movie like this. Even Matthew McConaughey was great as the classic “blow smoke up your ass” agent of Tugg’s. I wish he had more screentime. The mission for the TiVo thing is something I’ll never forget. This film also gave us the scene in which McConaughey and Cruise are in the same scene at the same time. It’s never happened before and for me as a movie fan, it felt like a huge moment. Maybe it’s me overanalyzing things, but it was easily one of my favorite scenes just because it’s never happened before.

Rounded out by very funny roles from Nick Nolte and Danny McBride, twists that amplify the humor, a litany of star cameos, solid action, creativity, and Tom Cruise in the most outlandish, non-Tom Cruise role ever, you’ll probably wish Tropic Thunder was a little bit longer to give more screentime to everyone. It’s not as good as the similarly premised Galaxy Quest, but the antics of the stars are crazier, the cast is larger, the commentary is tougher, and the humor is just as good. It really captures the feel of a disastrous production turned completely on its head.

Fun Fact: Ben Stiller initially envisioned himself in the role of Rick Peck (which basically would’ve turned into his “Michael Pheret Talent Agency” sketch from The Ben Stiller Show) and Keanu Reeves in the role of Tugg Speedman. As things started to mold into what they would become, Owen Wilson was supposed to play Rick Peck, but a suicide attempt forced him to drop out of the role. Kevin Hart was originally offered the role of Alpa Chino role as well.