...Rick Peck
-The plot-
British Director Damien Cockburn has a tough assignment on his hands, the location shoot for Tropic Thunder not going great. The adaptation of the book of the same name of the supposedly true story of the recovery of Sergeant 'Four Leaf Tayback' from the steamy ... Read review
Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey Jr. lead an all-star cast in the outrageous ... more
comedy Tropic Thunder. When three of Hollywood's biggest stars head into the jungle of Vietnam to shoot a war movie, they have no idea how real things can get.
Comedy - Director: Richard Boden, Mandie Fletcher, Martin Shardlow - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Hugh Laurie, Miranda Richardson, Stephen Fry, Brian Blessed, Tim McInnerny, Tony Robinson, Rowan Atkinson
Comedy - Director: Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Carol Cleveland, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Jones
Production Year: 2004 - Comedy - Director: John Hay - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jimi Mistry, Kate Miles, Dougray Scott
Comedy - Original Language: English - Classification: 12 years and over - Starring: Tessa Peake-Jones, Buster Merryfield, David Jason, Nicholas Lyndhurst
Advantages: Funny in places Disadvantages: People didnt get the double irony
...hands, the location shoot for Tropic Thunder not going great. The adaptation of the book of the same name of the supposedly true story of the recovery of Sergeant 'Four Leaf Tayback' from the steamy jungles of South East Vietnam is grossly over budget and two months behind schedule after only five days of filming? Cockburn is for the boot unless he can keep the costs down, studio boss Less Grossman (Tom Cruise) spitting feathers over his handling ... ...
'The Cast of Tropic Thunder'
A straight behind the scenes with some of the cast.
'The Cruise Screen Test '
Like I said you have to double-take to believe this is Tom and the dance sequence is brilliant. I suspect David Beckham taught him the movies, England's most capped player surprisingly name-checked in the movie by Stiller.
It was a case of life imitating art here as Robert Downey Junior picked up that bizarre best supporting actor Oscar nomination for his equally oddball portrayal in this spoof war movie of a 'black' American G.I (the grovelling BAFTA awards repeating this silliness to drag the mischievous actor over the pond), Ben Stiller's character 'Tugg Speedman', earning a likewise nomination in the film for the best supporting actor at the pretendy Oscars here. Downey's performance is fairly comic but what on earth was he doing being mentioned at the big awards ceremony?
I know some of the reviews on here have been less than favourable on this, perhaps, rather unfairly, pigeonholing the film in that tacky spoof bracket along with rubbish like Date and Scary Movie... But if you look deeper this is not as bad as they say, worth seeing just for the almost unrecognisable Tom Cruise spoof as the hyper studio boss, his accompany Hip Hop dance for the closing credits definitely the best comic work he's ever done. Yep, that was him guys! It really isn't the dumb spoof some are saying and with Steve Coogan in the mix representing the Brits it has echoes of his more sophisticated 'mockumentry', A Cock and Bull Story, although his role here is 'dumbed' down for American audiences.
-The Cast-
Robert Downey Jr. ... Kirk Lazarus - Hot LZ Jack Black ... Jeff Portnoy - Hot LZ Jay Baruchel ... Kevin Sandusky - Hot LZ Brandon T. Jackson ... Alpa Chino - Hot LZ Ben Stiller ... Tugg Speedman - Hot LZ Eric Winzenried ... Chopper Pilot - Hot LZ Steve Coogan ... Damien Cockburn - Vietnam Crew David Pressman ... First Assistant Director - Vietnam Crew Amy Stiller ... Script Supervisor - Vietnam Crew Bill Hader ... Studio Executive Rob Slolom - Vietnam Crew Nick Nolte ... Four Leaf Tayback - Vietnam Crew Tom Cruise...Les Grossman - Grossman's Office Mathew McConaughey ....Rick Peck
-The plot-
British Director Damien Cockburn has a tough assignment on his hands, the location shoot for Tropic Thunder not going great. The adaptation of the book of the same name of the supposedly true story of the recovery of Sergeant 'Four Leaf Tayback' from the steamy jungles of South East Vietnam is grossly over budget and two months behind schedule after only five days of filming? Cockburn is for the boot unless he can keep the costs down, studio boss Less Grossman (Tom Cruise) spitting feathers over his handling of the set, earning a punch in the face on video conference for failing to capture the four million dollar special effect explosion.
When the real Four Leaf arrives on set to see how things are going he persuades Cockburn to get his actors to get into the 'method' more, the plan to drop them off in the middle of the jungle for some guerrilla film making, a more roar and authentic movie to get things back on track. Lead actor Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr) is up for it and already deep in character after having his skin pigment changed to play a black G.I., much to the increasing aggravation of the films token rapper, 'Alpa Chino' (Brandon T Jackson), increasingly irked by Lazarus 'blacksploitation' turn. Co star Tugg Speedman (Stiller) is also on board for the new approach, his career in freefall after playing the 'full mental', in his last movie 'Simple Jack', a fatal error according to Lazarus. Cocaine snorting comedy fat man Jeff Portney (Jack Black) and final Hot LZ squad member Corporal Sandusky (Jay Baruchel) are not too keen on the going native plan, especially when a bat steels his stash.
The authenticity soon gets out of hand when the actors run into heavily armed Vietnamese drug runners, the guys and the director accidentally dropped smack bang into the middle of the Golden Triangle drug trail, great for Portney, but bad for the rest of the actors, soon under fire with real bullets against their plastic guns and blanks. What started out as movie about a heroic true story of rescue has turned into something far more dangerous and real, method acting at its most authentic, Lazarus refusing to come out of character even when he's in the crosshairs of a drug barons rocket launcher. But for fading star Speedman this chaos may be the rebirth of his career and the role he has been waiting for to turn things around, his agent Rick Peck (Mathew Mahogany) only too keen to encourage that bravado from the other end of the cell phone in sunny L.A...
-The Conclusion-
There's no doubt it was rather misguided to hype this up as a highbrow satire on the movie industry, this not in 'The Player' territory, and perhaps that nod and a wink came from a crafty movie exec who was perhaps trying to aim a midbrow movie at lowbrow audience to get more laughs and so make more money, that irony not lost on the films comic narrative and subject matter. But I think it deserves a look as it has some genuine big laughs (the Panda joke) and some well observed humour on movie hype and the stars ego's that build that up and so the best movie spoof since Another Ten Movie. Coupled with its self mocking performances from the mega cast and celebrity cameos it's done enough for me to earn the fourth dooyoo star. You can only really rate a movie against what else has gone up against it in its own genre and so it does earn some respect on that score. Yes some of it is corny and obvious but there's something about Ben Stiller's vacant grin and RDJ mischievous nature that work on screen. Jack Black, on the other hand, is as awful as ever.
Stiller is moulding himself into an interesting character in Hollywood and those grotesque and sugary romcoms that he was recently retreated to will hopefully be thing of the past now after this. He had brilliant comic chemistry with Owen Wilson and is very funny in his choice of straight comedies alongside the likes of Ferrell and Vince Vaughan. Yes, Ben Stiller can even make Vaughan funny! What's also fun here is the lead characters are most definitely taking the pi** out of current Hollywood stars, Lazarus, Russell Crowe and Stiller playing Nick Cage in all but name. There's also some spoof film trailers before the film starts and they too enjoy sending up Hollywood, Toby McGuire and Rob Downey Junior (Iron Man and Spider Man) playing monks experimenting in forbidden love in 'Satans Alley', a decent chuckle.
Apart from the actors spoofing the genre there's plenty of war movie references here, some you will know, some you won't, some very obvious. But the point here is Stiller gave it ago and got a great cast on board and it sure as hell makes a change to see a comedy without Seth Rogen or Judd Apatow in it. This is jus good clean fun and you will laugh at enough of the jokes to feel like the rentals worth while. What it isn't as Date Movie, on of the most cringingly bad films of all time...
= = = = Special Features = = = =
-Audio Commentary-
Stiller, Black and Rob Downey Junior (still in character) give a light hearted and silly layered track of their movie, and I'm all for that.
'Blowing Up Sh*T'
Backstage with the special effect guys as they do indeed blow things up.
'The Hot LZ'
The squad is based on the Tropical Thunder regiment from the Thin Blue Line and Stiller points out other war movies he has spoofed in this.
'The Cast of Tropic Thunder'
A straight behind the scenes with some of the cast.
'The Cruise Screen Test '
Like I said you have to double-take to believe this is Tom and the dance sequence is brilliant. I suspect David Beckham taught him the movies, England's most capped player surprisingly name-checked in the movie by Stiller.
'Full Mags'
A talking heads split screen filler that just isn't needed on what is some decent extras for once...
'MTV trailer'
This is great fun as Stiller and his nephew grill RDJ and Jack Black in his office to hilarious consequence, Stiller definitely drawing from his time with Ricky Gervais on Extras...
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = IMDB.COM Scores it 7.3 out of 10.0 (76,458 votes) RuN-TiMe 109 minutes Any 2 films for 2 nights for a fiver! = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Advantages: Robert Downey Jnr is brilliant as always, Some funny moments Disadvantages: Not brill preformances from Stiller/Black/Cruise
Tropic Thunder
This film was probably the last film that I had yet to watch that I wanted to watch from 2008 and I finally got my hands on the DVD today and sat down not knowing what to expect. I really hoped it’ll be another Pineapple Express and not another In Bruges which tried to be funny and failed. I got my choice and I found that surprisingly this film was great; I originally only thought I’d like the film because of the three leads, Jack ... ...Rock and then you get Tropic Thunder. There are a lot of explosions and gun fights but at the same time you get a lot of comedy and when there is a scene which has been done countless times in war movies, you get a great comedy scene instead, I was expecting this a lot within this movie, but you really get it doubled within this film. ==The Acting==
Ben Stiller was the weakest actor in the entire film in my opinion, maybe just behind Tom Cruise ...
DixieChick10 02.03.2009
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Tropic Thunder (DVD)
Advantages: good acting and great effects Disadvantages: Average story which could have been so much better
...Downey jr.
The Cast of Tropic Thunder
Blowing $#%+ Up
And More!
I have not watched any of these features as I have no interest in them so I cannot comment on them. I perhaps would have found a gag and blooper reel quite funny but there wasn’t one included which was a shame. The film has a running time of 102 minutes which I found quite long enough an think that it would have started to get boring and the story would have dragged if it was any ... ...it does contain a lot of strong language and sex references. There is also a lot of comic violence and I do agree with this rating. Overall I think that the film was well made and more so by the effects. I did find I was laughing out loud in some of the places but I think it was quite overrated and not as funny as I expected it to be and hubby does agree with me on this. ...
sewbizzie 02.06.2009
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Tropic Thunder (DVD)
Advantages: funny, great cast Disadvantages: too silly at times
...notch, oh yes!!! I saw Tropic Thunder at the cinema not long ago and was so excited as the trailers looked fantastic and extremely funny, also Ben Stiller is a favourite actor of mine and directed/part wrote it so I had the expectation it was going to be sound. Well I wish I could congratulate him on an award winning film but sadly for me its not award winning but worthy of recognition for the bizarrely brilliant acting!
This is how it begins,
... ...US Army was sent on a top secret assignment in Southeast Vietnam. The objective: rescue Sgt. Four Leaf Tayback from a heavily guarded NVA Prison Camp. The mission was considered to be near-suicide. Of the ten men sent, four returned. Of those four, three wrote books about what happened. Of those three, two were published. And of those two, only one got a movie deal. This is the story of the men who attempted to make that movie.'
Basically the film ...
christinat 07.12.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Tropic Thunder (DVD)
Advantages: Worth watching Disadvantages: Not worth watching twice
...look no further than -- Tropic Thunder.
Although writing for the movie had been a long time in the running, the script was not given the greenlight until 2006, with filming beginning in 2007. Over a 13-week period, the movie was shot in the Hawaiian island, Kauai. The last budget of between $100-$150 million made the filming the largest in the small islands lifetime. There was also a large advertising campaign running in the US to promote the film ... ...have reacted generally positively towards Tropic Thunder, however the movie has came under attack from the disabled community for the reoccuring use of the word, 'retard'. There is also a reference to the n-word, however I have not seen the movie come under attack from the black community. '''STORYLINE'''
Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller) is the leading actor of a hugely successful action movie franchise, however with the franchise continuously being ...
nathaninnit 22.09.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Tropic Thunder (DVD)
Advantages: Great performance from Robert Downey Jr. Disadvantages: GreatActing from Stiller and Black
== TROPIC THUNDER ==
=== A FILM ONLY REVIEW ===
This film had completely passed me by as both film and DVD; I actually watched it off Sky Movies. I decided to watch it as I noticed that Ben Stiller and Jack Black were in it and I generally enjoy their films. === THE PLOT ===
The spoof war film is about waning action star Tugg Speedman; multiple Oscar winner Kirk Lazarus - a method actor who endures pigmentation surgery in order to play a black ... ...The majority of Tropic Thunder took place once Damien decided to take the cast out into the jungle and drop them off. Before that happened, a bit of time was taken to introduce the characters, including showing fake movie trailers for recent movies for Tugg, Kirk, and Jeff as well as a commercial for the energy drink and bar that Alpha was selling. Time was also taken to show just how badly things were going on set. One scene even included an Access ...
oldchem 05.10.2009 (06.10.2009)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Tropic Thunder (DVD)
Contains strong language, sex references and comic bloody violence
Video Category
Feature Film
Country Of Origin
United States of America
Plot
A desperate director trying to make a Vietnam war movie drops his three pampered actors into the heart of the jungle. What they fail to realise, however, is that the scenarios they find themselves in are very real and not part of the movie!
Release details
DVD Region
DVD
Studio(s)
PARAMOUNT HOME ENTERTAINMENT; TECHNICOLOR DISTRIBUTION SERVICES, PARAMOUNT
Languages
Main Language
English
Technical information
Special Features
Cast commentary with Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. , Featurettes: Blowing Shit Up, The Cast of Tropic Thunder, The Hot LZ , Make-Up Test with Tom Cruise , Full Mags , RAIN OF MADNESS trailer , MTV Movie Awards – TROPIC THUNDER
Aspect Ratio
16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Sound
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, Dolby Digital
Professional reviews
Review
Hilarious (Daily Star, 23/01/2009)
A broad action comedy that manages to mix subtlety with satire (Hollywood Reporter, 23/01/2009)
Brilliant – great entertainment (Sunday Mirror, 23/10/2008)
A parody of war movies and a pinprick in the helium balloon of Hollywood egos (Time Magazine, 23/01/2009)
Brilliant (Uncut, 23/10/2008)
DVD Description
When box office champ Ben Stiller's comedic performances aren't a variation on a soft-spoken, put-upon everyman with an eventual fuse, he's usually playing a full-blown absurdist monster with an apoplectic Napoleon complex. These bizarre creations usually adorn films in which the funnyman provides the supporting work (DODGEBALL, HEAVYWEIGHTS), but, whenever he's directing, he's free to build an entire filmic universe around his asinine, ludicrously funny, culture-skewering characters and premises. His ZOOLANDER (2001) bit at the entertainment industry with silly abandon, but Stiller has firmly set TROPIC THUNDER within the realm of sophisticated Hollywood satire. In it, a desperate director named Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) trying to make a Vietnam war movie drops his pampered actors into the heart of the jungle. Cockburn's stars include Stiller as an action hero who's starting to make bad career choices, Jack Black as an insecure low-brow comedy star going through heroin withdrawals, and Robert Downey Jr. as an Australian Oscar winner so lost in his 'craft' he underwent a procedure to become black for his role. In the jungle, they remain under the delusion that they are still being filmed even after they encounter a dangerous gang of drug lords. The film's basic premise has popped up several times since Hollywood's 1970s golden age in films such as THREE AMIGOS! and GALAXY QUEST. Where those films simply blanketed a classic Overconfident Bumbling Idiot comedy showcase with a pop culture lexicon, however, TROPIC THUNDER could have only been made, as on-the-nose at is, by people who have been working in the Hollywood system for years, making cutting observations along the way. Simply put, this raucous satire knows big-budget filmmaking, the delusional narcissism of actors, and even the good points of those actors--perhaps why they're celebrated--like the back of its hand.
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