News
To be honest, I really really wanted to dislike “Tropic Thunder,” and not just because Jack Black and Ben Stiller are in it.
One of my best friends is a television producer who writes movie reviews for her local paper in Colorado. She panned “Tropic Thunder” and found herself slimed — she suspects by an organized campaign by people affiliated with the movie — as a result.
In the interest of solidarity and of testing her theory, I wanted to call down the thunder and see if I got the same treatment as my friend, the online comments full of self-righteous indignation and grammar errors. (I might not received the exact same treatment as her, though, since I reckon that somebody somewhere — probably Colorado — has already registered as “DanThomasIsAnIdiot” to leave a comment.)
With Black and Stiller starring in “Tropic Thunder,” my hopes were high — that is to say, low. And with controversy surrounding the film — not Robert Downey Jr. playing an Australian actor who gets skin pigmentation surgery to play the platoon’s black staff sergeant but over the use of the word “retard” — I figured I could generate some indignation of my own.
Alas, “Tropic Thunder” didn’t cooperate. With Black at his most tolerable since “King Kong” and Stiller largely abandoning his manic schtick in favor of a deft directing touch, “Tropic Thunder” let me down by being watchable.
It’s more slyly clever than laugh-out-loud funny, though, so I’m a little surprised by how well it went over. The highlight comes right at the beginning, a series of fake trailers promoting the films of actors Tugg Speedman (Stiller), Jeff Portnoy (Black), Kirk Lazarus (Downey) and a video by rapper Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson).
The next job for the actors above, along with Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel from most of Judd Apatow’s projects), is a cinéma vérité Vietnam War project that plunges them into the thick of Southeast Asia with director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan from “Hamlet 2”).
As “Tropic Thunder” pretty much has stayed on top of the box office since its release Aug. 13, it’s not giving too much away to reveal that the central joke involves the cast in dire straits in the jungle and oblivious to the fact that they’re no longer acting. With Speedman losing his grip on reality, Portnoy in drug withdrawal, and Lazarus and Alpa Chino sniping at each other, Baruchel’s Sandusky is the moral compass by default, the lone buoy of sanity in a sea of madness.
Of course war movies, especially “Platoon” bear the brunt of the “Tropic Thunder” assault (the title itself is a play on “Tropical Lightning,” the nickname of the real-life 25th Infantry Division), as do “Blair Witch”-like ideas and reality television. But the real surprise was that a movie so determined to bite the Hollywood hand that created it provoked such a reaction that my friend thought it was organized.
I’m a little disappointed that I wasn’t disappointed enough to call down the thunder on myself and find out.
One of my best friends is a television producer who writes movie reviews for her local paper in Colorado. She panned “Tropic Thunder” and found herself slimed — she suspects by an organized campaign by people affiliated with the movie — as a result.
In the interest of solidarity and of testing her theory, I wanted to call down the thunder and see if I got the same treatment as my friend, the online comments full of self-righteous indignation and grammar errors. (I might not received the exact same treatment as her, though, since I reckon that somebody somewhere — probably Colorado — has already registered as “DanThomasIsAnIdiot” to leave a comment.)
With Black and Stiller starring in “Tropic Thunder,” my hopes were high — that is to say, low. And with controversy surrounding the film — not Robert Downey Jr. playing an Australian actor who gets skin pigmentation surgery to play the platoon’s black staff sergeant but over the use of the word “retard” — I figured I could generate some indignation of my own.
Alas, “Tropic Thunder” didn’t cooperate. With Black at his most tolerable since “King Kong” and Stiller largely abandoning his manic schtick in favor of a deft directing touch, “Tropic Thunder” let me down by being watchable.
It’s more slyly clever than laugh-out-loud funny, though, so I’m a little surprised by how well it went over. The highlight comes right at the beginning, a series of fake trailers promoting the films of actors Tugg Speedman (Stiller), Jeff Portnoy (Black), Kirk Lazarus (Downey) and a video by rapper Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson).
The next job for the actors above, along with Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel from most of Judd Apatow’s projects), is a cinéma vérité Vietnam War project that plunges them into the thick of Southeast Asia with director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan from “Hamlet 2”).
As “Tropic Thunder” pretty much has stayed on top of the box office since its release Aug. 13, it’s not giving too much away to reveal that the central joke involves the cast in dire straits in the jungle and oblivious to the fact that they’re no longer acting. With Speedman losing his grip on reality, Portnoy in drug withdrawal, and Lazarus and Alpa Chino sniping at each other, Baruchel’s Sandusky is the moral compass by default, the lone buoy of sanity in a sea of madness.
Of course war movies, especially “Platoon” bear the brunt of the “Tropic Thunder” assault (the title itself is a play on “Tropical Lightning,” the nickname of the real-life 25th Infantry Division), as do “Blair Witch”-like ideas and reality television. But the real surprise was that a movie so determined to bite the Hollywood hand that created it provoked such a reaction that my friend thought it was organized.
I’m a little disappointed that I wasn’t disappointed enough to call down the thunder on myself and find out.
