Caffeinated Clint
By Clint Morris
Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr star in this insanely funny flick as a group of spoilt actors making a Vietnam War film when their fed-up writer and director decide to abandon them in the middle of the jungle, forcing them to fight their way out. Now, armed with weapons but with no jungle skills to speak-of, they’ll have to fight a real enemy and very dangerous, unknown terrain.
Think “Hot Shots Part Deux!” but with real jokes!
The biggest surprise of ”Tropic Thunder” (well, the one that hasn’t been spoilt everywhere else – like Downey Jr playing an Australian actor who surgically has his skin dyed brown so he can play an African-American in the movie) is Tom Cruise in a scene-stealing cameo!
We’ve seen the Oscar Nominee play, well, Tom Cruise for too long – in the movie he plays a fat, sweaty, hairy, foul-mouthed studio head….Not just a realistic character, but one you definitely wouldn’t expect to see ol’ Pearly Whites playing! And wait till he starts dancing! You’ll need Dr. Doogie to stitch up your sides for ya! You’ll do some damage – we promise you!
This film is quite the achievement. There’s so much work been put into it – it may be a comedy, but Stiller and company have gone out of their way to put as much into it as say Coppola did on “Apocalypse Now”. It looks a [100] million bucks!
Extras
There’s some terrific bonuses on the DVD. There’s two commentaries (one from the cast and crew, another from the cast) and they’re both well worth a listen to (though I found the track with Stiller and writer Justin Theroux more in line with my interests), numerous featurettes on how the film was put together, another on Cruise’s make-up, a faux documentary on the faux movie called “Rain of Madness”, and some lengthier versions of some of the scenes in the movie – all very funny improvised bits cut down for running time.
