Opening Day: 23 October 2008

Synopsis:

Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. lead an ensemble cast in "Tropic Thunder," an action comedy about a group of self-absorbed actors who set out to make the most expensive war film. After ballooning costs force the studio to cancel the movie, the frustrated director refuses to stop shooting, leading his cast into the jungles of Southeast Asia, where they encounter real bad guys.

Movie Review:

Stay away from this movie if any of the below items irritate your self righteousness self – rude racial stereotypes, jokes about the mentally retarded, offensively foul fart gags and politically incorrect portrayals of opium traders. Heck, this movie doesn’t even bother to be geographically accurate – why does a panda appear in the Vietnam forest all of a sudden? Everything about this movie is just for laughs, and if you have decided to have a serious day out at the movies, you may want to stay away from this Ben Stiller directed comedy.

And we mean far, far away.

Taking into no consideration how fat, mentally challenged or ethnic people would feel, Stiller brings together a respectable cast to make a movie about making a movie. Together with screenwriters Etan Cohen (Idiocracy) and first timer Justin Theroux, the Saturday Night Live alumnus tells a unique story about how a group of actors shooting a big-budget war movie are forced to become the soldiers they are portraying in the dangerous forests of Vietnam. No thanks to a series of freak occurrences, they meet dangerous warlords and yes, there will be blood.

The cast is a hoot to watch. Stiller (The Heartbreak Kid) himself plays an action movie star who is used to the wham and bam of things. His deadpan expressions are as funny as his, err, newfound and well developed biceps. Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man) plays a serious movie actor who takes things a little too seriously in the wilderness of things, and you know sparks will fly when these two characters meet. Jack Black (Be Kind Rewind) plays a fat brat whose franchise of slapstick movies involve characters in fat suits are overshadowed by his drug addiction. Throw in other characters like an angst ridden war veteran, a consumer product endorsing rapper, a narcissistic celebrity agent, a foul mouthed movie producer and a poor director who gets blown up by land mines a quarter into the movie, and you’d get a riotous comedy that will have you roaring in laughter throughout its 107 minute runtime.

Oh, and the cameos by Jon Voight, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jason Bateman, Alicia Silverstone and 2003 MTV Movie Award “Best Kiss” recipient Tobey Maguire (you’ve got to see this to believe this) cracked us up, like, totally.

The movie wastes no time in setting up the laughs. The faux movie trailers that kick start the picture are so superbly produced, we’d pay the price of another ticket just to see more. Then the outrageously hilarious movie charges from one joke to another, making fun of the Hollywood system amongst other things. And that is why this is no shallow jesting movie – it’s got a out of this world brand of hilarity and absurdity that comments on the well, hilarity and absurdity of the system that is working out there.

And thanks to this movie, we’ve got an insightful explanation of why Tom Hanks (Forest Gump) and Dustin Hoffman (Rain Man) got Oscars for playing mentally challenged characters, while poor Sean Penn (I Am Sam) went home empty handed.

Now, we’d really like to see someone from this movie get an Oscar nomination for his side splitting performance.

Movie Rating:

(We laughed so hard, we think no other movie this year would be more outrageously funny than this)

Review by John Li