Movie Review - Tropic Thunder

Tropic Thunder is perhaps the funniest movie of the year. It stars Ben Stiller as Tugg Speedman, an action star whose career is in dire jeopardy, Jack Black as Jeff Portnoy, a comedic actor with a serious drug addiction, and Robert Downey Jr. as Kirk Lazarus, an Australian Academy Award-winning actor who consumes himself completely in his roles. All of these actors are in the process of filming the most expensive war movie ever made, based on the novel of John “Four Leaf” Tayback, played by Nick Nolte.

Production of the film becomes a heavy ordeal when an effects-driven, $4 million scene is horribly botched. Because of this giant screw up, only 5 days into shooting, filming is now a month behind and executive Les Grossman, portrayed by Tom Cruise, is absolutely furious. Grossman threatens the director to get things back in shape or risk having production halted permanently.

Four Leaf gives the rookie director the idea to ship the actors into the dense jungle and film the movie guerrilla-style, with hidden cameras and explosives through out the area. Shortly after being dropped in by helicopter, the director announces to the handful of actors nobody goes home until the rest of the movie is completed.

The director dies right after due to a landmine left behind by the French, but everyone, except Lazarus, believes the accident was staged to get them into character. The only things left to guide the actors are a scene listing and a map to the helicopter waiting for them at the end of the jungle. It goes without saying that they all run into more trouble along the way.

Everyone involved with Tropic Thunder brings their A-game, and you can tell they had fun doing it. Robert Downey Jr. does one of the best performances of his career and is almost unrecognizable. His character is a white man portraying an over the top black man and he is hilarious in every scene. If not for Tom Cruise’s equally notable performance, Downey would totally steal the show. Cruise’s portrayal of foul-mouthed, hot-tempered, eccentric billionaire Les Grossman is hysterical and is the best acting gig from him in years. I imagine Cruise used his true-life insanity for inspiration.

This is truly the best comedy I’ve seen recently and it gets a high recommendation from me.