Tropic Thunder (2008)

You know I’m rather impressed with just how on the money this film was. It’s an action/comedy, a send-up of the Vietnam war epic, and perfectly suited for its late summer release, when audiences are ready to have the explosion field behemoths they’ve been watching lambasted. Yet it is also a knowing satire, perhaps even deceptively brilliant, in that it captures the present state of the film industry as accurately in its satire, if not in its artistic merit, as Billy Wilder’s Sunset Blvd. did, nearly sixty years previous. Stiller accomplishes this through his presentations of types, the fading action star, the method Oscar hog, the gross-out comedian, the rapper aiming for cross over. These all could be rendered rather surfacey, and this film doesn’t escape that problem entirely, but even the characters of shallower pool are given something of a deep end.

Stiller has an ability to display a sympathetic insecurity, and the endearing drive of a character of limited ability to succeed. His Tug Speedman develops in his humanity in a way so natural to the flow of the film, that I’m only fully appreciating it upon reflection. Robert Downey Jr’s Russell Crowish, Kirk Lazarus is a brilliant performance, and loads of fun to watch, yet it evokes Peter Sellers tragic character dependency in ways both spelled out, and more subtle. Jack Blacks drug dependent gross out comic, and Brandon T. Jackson’s closeted rap star are less intricately developed, but effective renderings. I also quite enjoyed Jay Baruchel as the unknown young character actor in the film, and the groups anchor to reality.

The film of course takes its plotting from that old chestnut device of characters (not at first) realizing the situation they are in is real (The Three Amigo’s, The Man who Know to Little, Galaxy Quest). Yet this device is a well suited vehicle for what the film wants to accomplish. The humor here is in many parts quite funny, and often gross out, but there’s enough lite pathos and moral complexity to bring this near Judd Apatow territory. Agent Matthew McCongaughey’s moral dilemma over whether to save his friend and client of 15 years, or take the insurance money and the jet the studio promises if he remain silent about their plan to let Speedman die, actually felt legitimate to me. This movie works on both levels, which is almost amazing. Lastly I must mention Tom Cruse as the harry and foul mouthed executive Lou Grossman, just when you think he can’t surprise you anymore. My kudos to this smart crowd pleaser, 4 out of 5.