Movie Review - Tropic Thunder

Just saw Tropic Thunder last night, and I absolutely loved it. Nothing ground-breaking to report in my review here (i.e., sentiments will probably echo general consensus), but I thought it was hugely entertaining, very funny and spot-on with its commentary about society and Hollywood.

As an aside, this is my first movie review posted here and I'm still trying to figure out whether I'll be including spoilers or be relatively spoiler-free, in how much detail I'll summarize the plot, and whether I'll include any kind of rating system (stars, thumbs up/thumbs down, etc.). I'm inclined to try to stay relatively spoiler-free, and to not include any rating system because I think those are arbitrary and silly. I'll tell you if I liked or didn't like something, and if so, why.

Anyway, Tropic Thunder opens with some very funny fake trailers that provide some pretty good exposition for the main characters of the story. I liked all of the main leads, but I was least enamored of Jack Black's character (a cross between Jack Black, Eddie Murphy and Chris Farley) - I think I'm just not a huge Jack Black fan. Hmmm, is that true? I do really like him in certain roles (High Fidelity, School of Rock). Well, I'll have to think about it. Anyway, the plot concerns the filming of a war movie that goes horrifically wrong, and the self-absorbed actors who get involved in the movie that turns into real life. All sorts of wacky hijinks ensue, which is not as relevant to me as the terrific performances in the movie. You don't really need to know much about the plot, except to know that it's full of action, suspense, and assloads of funnies. Let me mention briefly the "controversy" surrounding this movie. If you actually see the movie, you will understand completely that this controversy is much ado about nothing, and that the mentally disabled are not the target of this movie. Hollywood is the target, and their idealization of the mentally disabled as "awards material". Also, I can't speak to whether Robert Downey Jr. "blackface" performance is offensive to African-Americans (as I am not one), but I would say that while he definitely walks some fine lines (as the movie does generally), his character takes the embracing of his role very seriously, and is again I think a satire and criticism of how seriously actors take themselves, as opposed to being a straight-up attempt at crude blackface humor.

All that being said, the movie is fairly crude and there' s a lot of swearing (particularly from Tom Cruise's "Les Grossman" character), along with some intentionally ridiculous Hollywood violence. As an aside, I think there is some argument that the most offensive characterization in the movie is Cruise's portrayal as the Jewish movie producer. His character is cheesy, money-obsessed and something of a walking stereotype. He is also completely hilarious and I loved the performance. So, I have mixed feelings about it (I'm Jewish). I did not have mixed feelings about the movie generally, though, I totally loved it and thought is was a real ass kicker of a comedy, with terrific acting and very smart dialogue.

One other thing. Tropic Thunder owes a huge debt to Bowfinger, the underappreciated Steve Martin movie where he films an action movie around a paranoid action star (played by Eddie Murphy) who has no idea he is in the movie, with a team of people who also have no idea that their star has no idea that there is a movie being filmed. I'd highly recommend Bowfinger to anyone who enjoyed Tropic Thunder.