Movie & Reviews
Tropic Thunder: Stiller's latest venture is always on target.
By Elyse Reel
Aug 20, 2008 - 9:11:07 AM

**** out of five

Ben Stiller’s first foray into the film director’s chair in seven years – following 2001’s Zoolander – feels like both an apology and a reassurance. True, he’s been making some terrible career choices (Meet the Fockers, The Heartbreak Kid), but Tropic Thunder is his way of reminding us that he still can be funny.

Very, very funny.

Tropic Thunder is, like Zoolander, what I call a “smart-stupid” comedy. Drenched in profanity, vulgarity, and juvenile jokes, it should appeal to the lowest common denominator; but at the same time, it’s an utterly brilliant satire that never fails to hit its marks.

Stiller plays falling action star Tugg Speedman, who’s gunning for an Oscar thanks to a role in a Vietnam War epic called Tropic Thunder. Also in the cast: multi-Oscar winner Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), a Method actor so deep into his craft he’s undergone a pigmentation darkening process to become a black man; Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), a recovering druggie whose claim to fame is a series of fart comedies; Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson), a hip-hop mogul and face of the Booty Sweat brand energy drink; and skinny nerd Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel), whose name no one ever remembers. Thrown into the Vietnam jungles to improvise their film, the self-centered egotists are too dense to realize that they’re in the midst of a real-life conflict with Vietnamese drug lords.

Much has been made of the ostensibly offensive elements in Tropic Thunder – the use of the word “retard,” in reference to Speedman’s role as a mentally challenged farmhand named Simple Jack; and Downey Jr.’s use of blackface. Disability activist groups are howling over the former; claims of racism are flying around the latter. And both are missing the point entirely.

During the course of Tropic Thunder, it becomes quite obvious that the retard and blackface jokes aren’t aimed at the mentally disabled or African-Americans: they’re aimed at Hollywood’s predilection for taking itself so seriously. Speedman’s role as Simple Jack isn’t funny because he’s mentally challenged; it’s funny because it’s such an Oscar-baiting role, the sort Hollywood loves to reward in excess. Simple Jack is a more extreme version of Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump or Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, and a delightful jab at Hollywood’s belief that rewarding such roles makes them more progressive.

And to dismiss Downey Jr.’s role as twenty-first-century minstrelsy is both a gross oversimplification, and an unfair dismissal of an incredible performance. The buffoon here is not the African-American community; it is, instead, Lazarus himself. He’s so dedicated to his craft that he changes the color of his skin; yet he fails to realize that stereotypical hip-hop slang and knowledge of the theme song from “The Jeffersons” don’t make him black. If there’s anything offensive to the role, it’s most assuredly Lazarus’ own blinkered view of the world.

But boiling Tropic Thunder down to its retard-and-blackface debates also ignores the fact that the rest of the film is absolutely hysterical. Pulling no punches and taking aim at all of Hollywood’s sacred cows, it provides more laughs per minute than nearly all of this summer’s other comedies put together. It’s filthy, crude, and frequently stupid; but filmed with an insider’s quick eye for all of Hollywood’s foibles.  Each character – from Stiller’s dimwitted Speedman down to lesser players like Matthew McConaughey’s equally dimwitted agent – gives a separate area of Hollywood a much-needed uppercut to the jaw.

In many ways, Tropic Thunder is one big in-joke among the Hollywood elite. But it’s a joke the rest of us can enjoy, too.

Tropic Thunder runs 107 minutes and is rated R for pervasive language including sexual references, violent content and drug material. Viewed at Southpark 16.

ereel@villagepublishing.com | 751-0421




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