movie review: Tropic Thunder

Ben Stiller has spoken: white guys in fat suits dancing to hip-hop are funny. Following the end credits of the 2004 Stiller vehicle Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, the actor sits shirtless in a grotesque fat suit singing “Milkshake,” a then-popular tune by the sultry singer Kelis. For his latest comedy, Tropic Thunder, Stiller hands the reigns to Tom Cruise, whose career has sunk so low that he dons a bald cap and fat suit to play a malicious movie exec named Les Grossman (he just might be Jewish) who constantly screams obscenities, and yes, dances to hip-hop in the film’s stirring finale. More miraculous is that for Cruise, this actually constitutes damage control.

Tropic Thunder is a better film that Dodgeball, mainly because of Robert Downey Jr.’s performance as Kirk Lazarus, a method actor who has undergone a pigment darkening surgery in order to portray a black man in the movie within the movie, also called Tropic Thunder. An action star (Ben Stiller), a comedian (Jack Black), and a rapper (Brandon T. Jackson) round out the cast, and Tropic Thunder follows their follies as they attempt to shoot an epic war film deep in the jungle.

Few actors could get away with wearing blackface through the whole of a major Hollywood movie, but if it’s anyone, it’s Downey Jr., who steals all his scenes and throws all his chops into creating a dedicated, misguided, and overextended thespian. Less interesting is watching a limited actor portray a talentless one, as is the case with Stiller and the action hero he plays, Tugg Speedman, a variation on the arrogant but well-meaning idiot he perfected in Zoolander. Downey Jr. also brings a low-key sense of humor to the film, which, aurally and visually, subscribes to the everything-louder-than- everything-else aesthetic.

The worst culprit in this regard is Jack Black, wasted here, who plays comedian Jeff Portnoy and is given little to do but scream “Yeah!” Black’s best scene is his first, a mock trailer for a Portnoy film called The Fatties: Fart 2, in which he wears (you guessed it) fat suits and plays a farting family in a spoof of crap like Eddie Murphy’s Nutty Professor sequel, The Klumps. Danny McBride, as a raucous redneck in the film crew, is also responsible for a lot of shouting; it’s debatable whether exclaiming “Big ass titties!” before detonating a bomb qualifies as comedy (though I found it hilarious).

The film has generated a great deal of hype, both good and bad, due to Downey Jr.’s character, and its treatment of “retards” (more unfunny than offensive), and its supposedly scathing indictment of the film industry. With regards to the final point, Tropic Thunder does have some good laughs at Hollywood’s expense, as in the mock trailers which open the film, and the clever entertainment news segments which dote endlessly on moronic actors. Matthew McConaughey, amiable as always, plays an agent (also a moron) responsible for managing prima donna movie star Tugg Speedman. And then, of course, there’s Cruise, whose Grossman represents all that’s immoral in Hollywood, like Ari Gold with none of the heart. But the satire is all surface deep. Ultimately, Cruise is just playing a fat guy that dances to hip-hop, and one can hardly think that would rile too many folks in the film industry.