ViewGuide

Created Aug 24, 2008 10:25PM PST • Edited Feb 24, 2023 02:47PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   Plenty funny, at least 60% LOL, yet as with all brutally rude modern comedies, the other 40% induces winces and groans. Still funny is funny, and this sucker brings the laughs.

   Much is being made of how the movie makes fun of the retarded. But why stop there? It also makes fun of blacks, Jewish studio execs and Vietnam War vets, to name just a few protected groups. (OK, so studio execs aren’t protected.) IOW, as with politically incorrect comedy since the days of Lenny Bruce, if you’re not ready to laugh at sacred cows, stay out of the slaughterhouse.

   Tropic Thunder marks Ben Stiller’s ascension to the A-list of comedy auteurs. While a big star for years, he’s never written, directed and starred in a movie this funny or fully realized.

   Helping him along are instantly legendary performances by Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise, who prove their star power works easily in this deeply satirical territory.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Robert Downey Jr.‘s Lazarus-like rise continues with his turn as Kirk Lazarus, a world’s greatest actor in the Robert De Niro mold, here going to great lengths to play a black sergeant. Applying his trademark verbal dexterity to hilarious effect as the self-serious Sgt. Osirus, Downey steals every scene he’s in.

   Tom Cruise’s performance as Les Grossman, studio exec badass extraordinaire, startles as it tickles. Tom Terrific goes all in here, plump in the gut, bald on top, and full of sexually charged bluster. Presumably channeling his inner Harvey Weinstein, Cruise helps rehabilitate his own self-serious image problems with this brutally funny bit.

   The other big stars are fine, as expected. Ben Stiller long ago perfected the art of appearing as a more attractive star than he really is, just as Nick Nolte long ago typecast himself as a bombastic man’s man.

   Matthew McConaughey steps out a bit as self-absorbed Hollywood agent Rick “Pecker” Peck. He’s always looked the part of the Hollywood opportunist (other than that mop of hair atop his head), now he plays one to a tee in Tropic Thunder.

   Bill Hader delivers yet one more perfectly funny turn, building on his remarkable run of success in Pineapple Express, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Superbad, and Knocked Up. If I’m a Hollywood comedy producer, I don’t see how I can’t include this guy in my next movie. He’s solid gold.

   Another now proven supporting actor appearing here is Danny McBride, currently also knocking ’em dead in Pineapple Express.

5. Male Stars Really Great 4.5

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

   No females to note, but can’t drag down the male star scores.

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Very Good 3.5

    The movie mocks Hollywood and its contrivances. Loud music, huge explosions, sickly realistic FX, it’s all here. It helps to have seen a few episodes of Entourage, not to mention the Vietnam movies directly satired (Apocalypse Now and Platoon most especially) to appreciate all of this, but like Shakespeare’s great comedies, you can equally well appreciate the show for its gut level humor.

11. Direction Very Good 3.5

    Hail Ben Stiller, big time movie director, not to mention writer and star. A production of this scale employs hundreds of people and can easily overwhelm the director, leading to the crap that often emanates from Hollywood. Not here. Stiller’s obviously got his mojo working.

12. Play Great 4.0

13. Music Great 4.0

    Booty Sweat is too funny.

14. Visuals Very Good 3.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 1.7

    Latex is used extensively to simulate guts, torn skin and other aftereffects of brutal violence. While it’s all in good clean fun, be warned.

17. Sex Innocent 1.0

18. Violence Fierce 1.9

19. Rudeness Salty 2.1

21. Reality

    Glib 1.5

    Hollywood action movie tricks are laid bare, from prosthetic guts to bombastic music to TiVo in the trailer.

    As to whether a few actors shooting blanks can overpower a drug army possessing real automatic weapons, well … don’t be a sucker, sucker.

    Finally, I guess the Vietnam War really is behind us, since Tropic Thunder proves we’re now capable of laughing at what was so traumatic for so long.

22. Circumstantial Glib 2.0

23. Biological Glib 1.4

24. Physical Natural 1.0