Tropic Thunder

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In the action comedy "Tropic Thunder," a group of actors shooting a war movie is led by Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), a pampered action superstar, Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), an over-the-top Australian-born method actor who has gone to extremes to get into character, and Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), a gross-out comedy star. .com ---- It's not really a knock to say that nothing in Tropic Thunder is funnier than its first five minutes, so sly that--especially for people watching in theaters--you don't realize right away they are the opening minutes of the movie. This outrageous comedy begins with a series of fake previews, each introducing one of the main characters in the film-proper (not that there's anything proper about this film) and each bearing the familiar logo of a different motion picture studio: Universal, DreamWorks SKG, et al. Such playing fast and loose with corporate talismans verges on sacrilege, but it's an index of how much le tout Tinseltown endorses the movie as a demented valentine to itself. The premise is that the cast of a would-be "Son of Rambo" movie shooting in some Southeast Asian jungle get into a real shooting war with drug-smuggling montagnards. Don't ask--though the movie does have an answer--why such highly paid, usually ultra-pampered personnel as superhero Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), Mozart of fart comedy Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), hip-hop artist Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson), and five-time O-winner Kirk Lazarus from Aus-try-leeah (Robert Downey Jr.) should be running through the jungle unattended and very vulnerable. It matters only that the real-life cast has a high time kidding their own profession and flexing their comedic muscles. Bonus points go to Stiller for co-writing the script (with Justin Theroux) and directing, and to Downey, brilliant as a white actor surgically turned black actor for his role and utterly committed to staying in character no matter what ("I don't drop character till I done the DVD commentary"). Be warned: The movie, too, is committed--to being an equal-rtunity offender. Its political incorrectness extends not only to Lazarus's black-like-me posturing but also Speedman's recent, Sean Penn–style O bid playing a cognitively challenged farmboy--or, in Lazarus's deathless phrase, "going the full retard." Others in the cast include Steve Coogan as a director out of his depth, Nick Nolte as the Viet-vet novelist whose book inspired the film-within-the-film, Matthew McConaughey as Speedman's sun-blissed agent back home, and Tom Cruise--bald, -suited, and profane--as an epically repulsive studio head. Two hours running time is a mite excessive, but otherwise, what's not to like? --Richard T. Jameson Stills from Tropic Thunder (Click for larger image) ( https://images-na.ssl-images-.com/images/G/01/DVD/Para/usDetailPage/TropicThunder/TropcThndr_H3L.jpg%20 ) ( https://images-na.ssl-images-.com/images/G/01/DVD/Para/usDetailPage/TropicThunder/TropcThndr_H1L.jpg ) ( https://images-na.ssl-images-.com/images/G/01/DVD/Para/usDetailPage/TropicThunder/TropcThndr_H2L.jpg ) ( https://images-na.ssl-images-.com/images/G/01/DVD/Para/usDetailPage/TropicThunder/TropcThndr_V3L.jpg ) ( https://images-na.ssl-images-.com/images/G/01/DVD/Para/usDetailPage/TropicThunder/TropcThndr_V1L.jpg ) ( https://images-na.ssl-images-.com/images/G/01/DVD/Para/usDetailPage/TropicThunder/TropcThndr_V2L.jpg ) ( https://images-na.ssl-images-.com/images/G/01/DVD/Para/usDetailPage/TropicThunder/TropcThndr_H4L.jpg ) ( https://images-na.ssl-images-.com/images/G/01/DVD/Para/usDetailPage/TropicThunder/TropcThndr_H5L.jpg ) ( https://images-na.ssl-images-.com/images/G/01/DVD/Para/usDetailPage/TropicThunder/TropcThndr_H6L.jpg )