It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a comedy in or out of a movie theater that’s made me laugh out loud. This past weekend I tried unsuccessfully to convince my wife to see the latest Star Whores, pun intended, "Clone Wars" (which might be a blessing considering the many unfavorable reviews). Second choice was "Tropic Thunder" with Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black and Tom Cruise.

source: box office mojo

Whatever you want to say about Robert Downey Jr’s offscreen problems — and he’s had many — his acting skills are superb. You can see why he keeps getting solid starring roles. In Tropic Thunder he goes into an area that seems almost universally taboo in this day and age, blackface, and yet he pulls it off. His portrayal of an actor who can’t get out of the grips of his role had tears in my eyes during some spots. Ben Stiller’s lead character has similar same hang-ups, a victim of one too many sequels and trying to get past a role he played that was panned, but loved by his a niche following.  Jack Black’s character was famous for fart movies and has an unhealthy penchant for drugs off screen. I’m not a big Jack Black fan but this was him at his funniest.

Tom Cruise sporting a beard and some heavy make-up plays a movie exec with an anger management problem. Cruise should do more comedies and get away from the whole action and drama movie scene for awhile.

The backdrop of the movie is the making of a Vietnam era war flick penned by a character played by Nick Nolte of 48 Hours fame. The trio of Black, Downey Jr and Stiller are dropped into a jungle where cameras will catch their every move. Away from all the pampering actor trucks and special favors given to stars. It takes a humorous amount of time before these actor soldiers realize they aren’t shooting a movie, they are embroiled in a real conflict with drug harvesters that require real soldier actions.

There aren’t enough movies that make fun of themselves and do so creatively. Example: before the Tropic Thunder movie started there were previews of the movies the characters in Tropic Thunder are playing. Talk about spoofing where you sleep. I’m going to take a few points off for parts that could have moved a little quicker. Pretty much all the parts right before the ending sequence were too slow narratively and could have been edited out to make the movie tighter.

As far as controversy and the parts that could make you cringe: I didn’t find the humor surrounding the mentally retarded character ("Simple Jack") that Ben Stiller’s character played funny. I’ve never found humor involving the mentally challenged or disabled people humorous. Maybe it’s because I know people are disabled and there’s nothing funny about being disabled.

It seemed like if "Simple Jack" had really existed, this movie would have drawn protests far greater than Tropic Thunder has done and rightfully so. And if filmgoers are to believe Stiller’s character would take on such a blatantly offensive project, why would he do it when his action movie sequels were less dangerous content? Plausibility problem for me, nevermind whether or not one thinks humor about the disabled is funny.

As the LATimes opinion piece aptly points out:

The "retard" jokes are a harder case, and I don’t quite buy the rationalization that Ben Stiller’s performance as "Simple Jack" derives all its laughs from its lampooning of Hollywood’s naive lionization of the mentally challenged. Yet it’s funny in a sophomoric, guilt-inducing way. I confess that I laughed both at "Simple Jack" and the Downey character’s advice to Stiller’s character never to "go full retard" if he wanted an Oscar.

The action movies Stiller’s character were most popular for ("Scorcher") seemed much more plausible and easier territory to score with laughs. I think Stiller and company could have used the action movie character scenes with more humor and am somewhat puzzled why that wasn’t used instead. It seemed more like a cheap shock jock type device rather than a vital part of the film. As for the protesting groups, I think you have somewhat of a point, but you probably did more to promote the movie than hurt ticket sales. It didn’t work for me. A friend had to tell me you were protesting, but I probably would have been more intrigued to see if the film was offensive if I’d known you were protesting. That’s always the danger with drawing too much attention to something you hope others won’t pay to see. Controversy sells tickets.

Tropic Thunder is a comedy worth seeing. The LATimes review reminded me that it borrows somewhat from Galaxy Quest in that the actors extend their roles beyond the screen, but I think it’s a different enough twist that it’s still creative.  Grade: A-

Did this post make you go hmm?

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