Film 009 - Tropic Thunder

(2008, colour, 107 mins)

Director - Ben Stiller

Starring - Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr, Jack Black, Brandon T Jackson, Jay Baruchel, Nick Nolte, Steve Coogan

I recently watched Tropic Thunder for the second time with my dad and my brother. As the credits rolled, my dad summed the film up perfectly in just four words: "Well, that was daft".

There's no better way to explain it as I'm concerned: Tropic Thunder is simply madder than a bucket of spanners.

The plot goes that five actors are shooting a war movie in Vietnam, but things aren't going too well as some of them are having problems emoting. The director (Steve Coogan) decides the best idea to deal with this is to get the actors in a helicopter, fly them into the middle of the jungle, strip them of their luxuries (mobile phones and such) and make them fend for themselves as he films. That's the plan, at least.

The problem is that this jungle area is home to a genuine gang of Asian criminals who are running a huge drugs operation and who don't take too kindly to visitors. Ironically, the actors are unaware of the danger they're in and think it's all part of the movie.

The ensemble cast is strong for the most part, with the possible exception being Jack Black. This is simply because his role doesn't allow for a lot of range though: playing an actor who's out of drugs and is crashing pretty badly, all he can really do is shout a lot, shiver and look a bit mad. He doesn't get a lot of great lines to work with.

The same can't be said for Robert Downey Jr, who is by far the star of the movie. As a multi-Oscar winning actor who's so serious about his parts that he literally lives the roles, he undergoes a controversial skin pigmenting operation so that he can turn himself black to play an African-American solider. Many of his subsequent lines are so stereotypially "black" that it's ridiculous, and ultimately hilarious.

Tropic Thunder is worth seeing becasue there are lot of memorable moments throughout, a few of which involve a fantastic cameo by a heavily-disguised Tom Cruise as a fat, bald, hairy movie producer. The only main problem with the movie is that the final 20 minutes of the film focus so much on action that the humour takes a seat for the most part, which can be frustrating. If you don't mind that though, this is well worth a look.

3.5 out of 5