LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Oh, what a lovely war moving picture Ben Stiller and his platoon have concocted in "Tropic Thunder."
Stiller -- who stars, directs, co-writes, co-produces and probably acts of the Apostles as animal wrangler as well -- imagines a lost patrol of self-absorbed yet terminally insecure actors working on a warfare movie to end all war movies in Southeast Asia only to wind up in a real world combat with narco-terrorists.
"Tropic Thunder," which opens August 13 via DreamWorks/Paramount, sends up all things Hollywood, from pampered actors and horrid media tycoons to war movies in general. OK, these ar easy targets. But Stiller and co-writers Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen shoot 'em with a fair degree of accuracy and consistency.
After a summer devoted to superheroes -- indeed, Stiller's co-stars Robert Downey Jr. and Jack Black played such roles in "Iron Man" and "Kung Fu Panda" -- how gratifying it is to experience a movie taking the mickey out of super-impossible heroics.
It's by no means a perfect comedy -- nor would you want it to be. Gags and stunts are all over the place, yet the film does de-Stiller-erize the essence of contemporary pic comedy even as it has merriment with outrageously crude jokes.
A savvy opening has leash movie trailers and a concession ad cleverly establishing our preeminent actors: Stiller's Tugg Speedman is a fading action star whose last, desperate bid for Oscar nimbus caught him playing Simple Jack, a retarded fieldhand who lavatory talk to animals. Black's coked-up Jeff Portnoy stars in a series of gross-out films built about fart jokes. Downey's five-time Oscar succeeder Kirk Lazarus -- remember early Robert De Niro, Laurence Olivier and Gwyneth Paltrow merely don't think about it too long -- is so into the "method" and physical disguise that he has surgically darkened his pelt to represent a black actor. Actor-comedian Brandon T. Jackson plays rap asterisk Alpa Chino -- suppose it to yourself slow -- world Health Organization promotes a "Booty Sweat" energy drunkenness and "Bust-A-Nut" candy bar.
In the name of legitimacy, the film's British music director (Steve Coogan) helicopters this gang along with playing newcomer Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel), a possibly shellshocked technical adviser (Nick Nolte) and an enthusiastic explosives expert (Danny McBride) deep into the jungle. The director payoff to step on an old land mine, which leaves the troupe without direction -- but no one here has of all time paid much attention to a managing director anyway.
This apparatus provides a broad comic canvas for stunts; explosions; battles 'tween actors lighting blanks and a drug gang that doesn't; wars back home between the film's financier and Tugg's agent (Matthew McConaughey); and a dose lord played by 12-year-old newcomer Brandon Soo Hoo.�
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