What run where the actors face and what happens beyond the boundaries of the screen has been a territory for shady glamour and glorified disasters as how the most of the entertainment industry itself depicts it. It has taken predominantly as a dark satire and “Tropic Thunder” not alone succeeds in it but also has characters within characters making sense than as spoof props. While self centered actors have been a known phenomenon, Robert Downey Jr. plays a dedicated method actor Kirk Lazarus with the sharpness he exhibited in “Iron Man”. He is so good in fitting a confident, adamant and authoritative character that he demands a respect and fear on audience. And how much more funny that can be.The film follows a crew filming three big stars in a Vietnam War film. An action hero Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller) declining in his status after a failed box office film portraying a mentally challenged person as a chance of appealing to the critics has his hopes tied up on this film. His counter part Kirk, an Australian actor is full on in dominating him. Kirk is a zealous method actor who went through a medical procedure to portray an African American. The third wheel is Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) an unstable comedian. Along with them is a young upcoming rapper Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson) and a dedicated geeky actor Kevin (Jay Baruchel) who is the only man with no issues. The film within the film’s director Damien (Steve Coogan) decides to put them in real jungle on the advice of the Vietnam veteran “Four Leaf” (Nick Nolte) only to be amongst the biggest drug lords.
Ben Stiller also directing the film marches confidently on satire with a sharp eye for seriousness with a great set of actors for the comedy. It does not spoof the war film and definitely does not to be those regular spoofs trying to mimic and fall flat. Instead it has performances buried under those funny faces. When one watches a drama film there is all the strain to follow the wrinkled emotions of an actor which nevertheless is a feat to pull off but in a comic film laughing lightens and dampens those performances under it. As always and as I have many times said, comic film performances and mainly films as such do not get credited as it supposed to. And in a film like “Tropic Thunder” it is paramount and anchors a script dependent on them.
What can be made about “Tropic Thunder”? What are the surprises it has to offer? For one is that we see a Tom Cruise let alone one could possibly have seen but never been imagined. Cruise playing an entertainment mogul does not express fun doing it but the exercising performance tells that he worked for a cameo so hard and it is hands down rioting. And add Mathew McConaughey to the list to get hard laid cameo casting done to perfection.
A mind seeing a film and especially one like mine which has laboriously watches one too many of them of course enjoying it will try to categorize. Categorize into existing and if not creating one. Every time a film comes and teaches it to not do it since it not alone circles the thought but also has a muddles the mind to pen down a review in my case. “Tropic Thunder” is one of those and I have a long way to go. In a comedy there are bland gaps in between laugh out loud moments. Those are considered inevitable and based on the scale of comic moments it gets the forgiveness. Hardly films make it through without one and it especially happens in the end. “The 40 Year Old Virgin”, “Knocked Up” and many other go through it as part of the process. While “Tropic Thunder” does not line up as the greatest comic film it does not go through those gaps either.
The art of film is a genuine work of team and an art made by a team amongst the politics of corporation, finance, ego and lot of external factors takes a breath to acknowledge it. The process which I can only imagine is an ordeal capable of faltering every step through it. “Tropic Thunder” cuts one part of it to make a funny film. Recently I saw comedy series called “Action” which ran one season a long time back. It had Jay Mohr as a producer trying hard to make his next film complete and mainly a box office. It is devilishly darkly comic in giving a Hollywood to wince at. This offers the same only that you do not wince much.
In the film “Knocked Up” the character of Paul Rudd says that life is an unfunny version of the sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond”. Any sitcom can be substituted for that with the relationship or work in place of life. “Tropic Thunder” can be vice versa-ed on it. It is a funny version of a completely serious film industry.
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