Movie Review: Tropic Thunder

Tropic Thunder is the smart, rambunctious satire. After feeling slightly let down by Pineapple Express, I was afraid the same thing would happen with Tropic Thunder. Fortunately, I was wrong. Way wrong.
Tropic Thunder is a movie about the making of the most expensive Vietnam war movie ever made, named 'Tropic Thunder'. This movie-in-a-movie is being made by an incompetent director and three lead actors who display a wide range of bizarre idiosyncrasies that stretch even Hollywood credibility. In an effort to subvert the wildly divergent methodologies of the actors, the director takes the five lead actors and dumps them in the middle of the jungle, telling them he will be filming guerrilla-style. Within minutes of being dropped off, everything goes wrong and the actors are unwittingly thrown into a real war, unaware that their lives are actually in danger.
There are so many awesome things about Tropic Thunder that I barely know where to begin; but I'll do my best...
The acting all around is nearly flawless and top-notch. The best two performances are Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise. Downey plays Kirk Lazarus, a highly-acclaimed Australian method actor who dyes his skin black in order to play the role of an African-American soldier. Lazarus' performances are always marked by his complete submergence into the roles, and his turn as Sgt. Osiris in 'Tropic Thunder' is no exception. Downey, a fine actor by any measure, is phenomenal as Osiris, utterly convincing and unrecognizable as a black man, yet more compelling as an actor so caught up in his job that he has lost touch with reality.
Nearly as enjoyable is Tom Cruise, who plays a ridiculously foul-mouthed film executive. The role is, in-and-of itself, not particularly unique given the wide range of wild characters in the movie, but the fact that it is played by Cruise and is utterly different than anything he has done before makes it a true pleasure to behold.
Ben Stiller turns in a great enjoyable performance as the celebrity action star who thinks he is in his element making a big, violent war movie. His resolve to turn in his first important dramatic role as an actor is unwittingly subverted when the plot of the movie he thinks he is making coincidentally mirrors what really happens to him in the jungle. The fact that he never realizes this makes everything he does seem ridiculous yet somehow endearing.
Perhaps the most pleasant surprise is Jay Baruchel, who essentially plays a role similar to his own roles in other movies: the normal, working actor who does his job and is in every way a responsible person. He is the inadvertent central anchor of Tropic Thunder simply because he is the only normal, relate-able character in the entire film. Who is Jay Baruchel, you ask? Eh, you'll recognize him...he is one of those actors that always shows up and does a good job, but is never the star. Ironic, eh?
The exception to the acting perfection of Tropic Thunder is Jack Black, whose druggie comedy actor is annoying through-and-through. He certainly represents a very real type of actor in Hollywood, who stars in terrible movies and abuses drugs to no end, but just as those types of people are annoying in real life, so is Black's character in this film. Black did as good a job as possible with a role I simply didn't like.

To truly enjoy Tropic Thunder, a viewer needs a passing knowledge of Hollywood, particularly the methods and madness actors indulge in to "perfect" their craft. Above all else, Tropic Thunder is a movie that makes fun of movies and the entire industry that supplies them. If anyone has been conscientious of the news surrounding the film, then you have undoubtedly heard the two primary controversies surrounding Tropic Thunder: cries of racism over Downey's 'blackface' performance as an African-American and complaints of insensitivity due to the frequent use of the term 'retard' throughout the movie.
Both of these complaints are not only inaccurate, but also made by people who utterly miss the point of a satire and the specific target of the satire in this film especially. On both counts, Tropic Thunder specifically mocks actors who go to extreme lengths to rise to the top of their profession; lengths that seem utterly absurd until you actually realize that real actors in real life do the exact same thing.
The complaints about Downey are, in my opinion, the most absurd. His makeup in the movie is meant to genuinely simulate (and completely succeeds in) making him actually look like an African-American, unlike the contemptible and genuinely offensive blackface makeup used in the past that was a completely racist practice. Stiller, the writer and director, does a masterful job navigating the very thin line between funny and offensive, and with respect to the treatment of Downey's character is successful in avoiding any genuinely racist overtones whatsoever.
More debatable are the complaints that the film mocks the mentally disabled. A central plot point revolves around the fact that Stiller's character, Tugg Speedman, had previously starred in a film about a mentally retarded farmhand, and there are several conversations about this role using questionable language. I can honestly understand why people complain and condemn this aspect of the movie, but bless their hearts, I also think that these people have utterly missed the point. When Hollywood makes a movie about mentally challenged people, they typically do not hire mentally disabled people for those roles. Is that discrimination? Did Tom Hanks insult and degrade all mentally challenged people by playing Forrest Gump? Of course not. It is a reality that films roles featuring mentally challenged people are not only typically cast with non-mentally handicapped actors, but are often critically recognized as plum roles for awards. The fact that the actors in Tropic Thunder discuss this fact in insensitive terms serves to further mock the hypocrisy of Hollywood actors; they can play challenging roles with tremendous emotional and social depth, yet possess neither of these qualities whatsoever. Hey folks, that's acting: pretending to be someone or something you clearly are not.

I could probably go on, but I don't think it's really necessary. Tropic Thunder is an intelligent but lighthearted comedy that makes fun of a very specific cross-section of society: Hollywood actors. It reminds me of Zoolander, which also strongly mocked a specific cross-section of society in an appropriately brilliant manner. In both cases, the targets are extremely wealthy, often stunningly dimwitted people who can survive a scathing satirical film about their industry. Not surprisingly, Stiller, an actor who grew up in and around the film industry, wrote and directed both films. It is hard to get really angry at people making fun of themselves, but it is so easy to laugh with them.

As a side note, Tropic Thunder earns its 'R' rating with a lot of ridiculously funny profanity and some horrifically graphic violence, which is played entirely for laughs and impossible to take seriously. If you've seriously thought of seeing it despite the rating, you'll probably love it. Otherwise, stick with you gut instinct--you'll probably be more offended than entertained. I'm sure there will be a 30-minute, silent version on TV someday...