Thunder No Blunder

Four lethargic, prima donna actors on location in Vietnam to make a movie about an American war hero get into a jam with their studio because they're too focused on themselves to care about the story or the script or the director or the budget. Threatened with being fired, the young director is despondent, but the author of the original book, a disabled war hero who is on location as a consultant, suggests to the director that they shoot the movie guerrilla style out in the jungle, that they put a real scare to the actors to let them feel the sense of war, of panic, of despair in order to get their heads back in their game. What could go wrong, right?

Soon after they launch the plan, something "happens" to the director, and the actors have to sort out everything on their own, and there ain't just a movie shooting out in the jungle!

I saw Tropic Thunder Friday night and quite thoroughly laughed my ass off! Starring Ben Stiller – who also directs – Robert Downey, Jr., and Jack Black, with supporting roles as supporting actors by Brandon T. Jackson and Jay Baruchel, Tropic Thunder takes no prisoners where the comedy is concerned. They spare no ethnic group, no race, no disability or personality type from the wrath of their humor, taking special delight in poking the Hollywood system, and poking it hard. Nor do they pull any punches with language or the depths of the gutter from which they retrieve material.

Stiller has a knack for getting A-list actors to appear in his films and take great chances at spoofing themselves or playing extreme roles. Robert Downey, Jr., does a wonderful job as a credentialed, multiple-Oscar-winning actor so wrapped up in his characters that he no longer knows who he is. And Jack Black is finally in a role where the top is too high even for him to go over. He has probably the most outrageous – and the funniest – lines peppered throughout the whole film.

The clearest victim of this film is the film industry itself. Originality, or the lack of it; the ridiculous vanities of the actors and the studios' pandering to their quirks; and the selfish, cut-throat nature of the industry movers and shakers are all sent up in epic, blockbuster fashion.

Tropic Thunder is far-fetched, profane and at times extremely vulgar, but figurative tongue is so deeply inserted in figurative cheek that even the profanity and vulgarity seem hollow and fake, and when that's done on purpose, it's a good thing! For as outrageous and far-fetched as the story itself is, I have a feeling that the behind-the-scenes scenes hit the nail squarely on the head.

Not since the original Star Wars have I walked out of a theater so entertained by a film that I have considered returning to see it again. I was weary from laughter, and found myself hours later — a day later — giggling over scenes that played in my memory.

On my Numb Butt Cheeks© scale, I give Tropic Thunder an 8.5.