Tropic Thunder could theoretically fail. It would have to try really hard, but failure is always available to people who are given 100 million dollars and have nothing but good intentions. Ben Stiller stars, directs and co-writes Tropic Thunder. The warning bells should start ringing about now. I’m talking about the goofy moron from crap-fests like Along Cam Poly, Meet the Fockers and The Heartbreak Kid. I’m hinting at the fact that he’s actually going to bring the funny? Have you just gotten into the toxic glue lately? Okay, listen up, Ben Stiller once, a long time ago, used to actually be funny. He had a genuinely funny the television series (“The Ben Stiller Show”), he directed darkly funny films (“The Cable Guy”) and people actually looked forward to his big-screen appearances. Had the “actually funny” Stiller been raised from the dead? Every sign point to yes. The cast for Tropic Thunder reads like a who-who of classic comedy: Robert Downey Jr (Back in people’s good books after Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Iron Man), Jack Black, Steve Coogan, Bill Hader, Danny Mcbride (Last seen as the indestructible ‘Red’ in Pineapple Express)Nick Nolte and Jay Baruchel. That’s almost too good to be true! It is.
The director of an over budgeted war film Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) just can’t deal with his diva actors. There’s the action guy Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), multi-award winner Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), ‘jellybean’ addicted comedy man Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), rapper turned actor Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson) and new kid on the block Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel). Out of sheer desperation the director decides to take the consultants advice (Nick Nolte) and send the whole lot of them into the jungle and shoot the film guerilla style. The problem is that the jungle is filled with cutthroat drug dealer and the movie is about to become reality.
The worst feeling one can have is be underwhelmed. It’s not quite disappointed, nor is it outright loathing, but is instead a tingle that reeks of opportunities lost. Tropic Thunder made me laugh a few times, but they were never big belly laughs, or moments that where going to stay with me. They were cheap. The jokes never bite as deep as they could. Most of the characters poke the surface, take away the easy laugh, and then rush over to the next gag. It’s not quite biting satire, but is more a poke in the ribs. Everyone on the cast is caught within the machinations of a ‘streamlined’ film. Ben Stiller does his usual shtick, but right up front there’s a problem with casting himself as the lead: No matter how buff the man gets, he will never be considered an action guy. Downey Jr and Jack Black are essentially making fun of their acting personalities, but Stiller just doesn’t fit . It would have been perfect if a true-blood action guy like Stallone had taken the role. As it is, we’ll have to deal with more on camera mugging that we’ve seen hundreds of times before. Oh, and yea, there’s that ‘famous’ crazy guy who makes fun of himself in a last ditch attempt to please to the ‘I can’t believe he did that!’ crowd. It’s a one scene joke that gets dragged over four of them and that culminates in one of the most embarrassing credit sequences of recent memory (“Ah-Ha! The Fat Man is dancing!”)
For a film that makes fun of the glossy overspending habits of the summer action film, it sure looks like one. It’s features some of the most expensive looking cinematography I’ve seen all year, the soundtrack is a slew of cliché tracks and the explosions explode BIG. If had never heard of it and caught five minutes of it on TV, I probably wouldn’t even know it’s a comedy. That’s a compliment, but an underhanded one, because at the end of the day Thunder fails at its promise to bite the hand that feeds it.
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