This weekend Ben Stiller took a poke at Hollywood actors and how shallow and self involved they can be. The movie is “Tropic Thunder†and let me just say that Ben has hit a home run with this movie. The movie is about three famous actors and a successful rapper who star in a war movie being filmed in South America. This movie is set to have the biggest budget ever for a war movie, with the cast that it has brought together, the only thing is they are terrible together and have been costing the studio way too much money. So after the studio pulls the plug on the project, the director decides to drop our group in the deep jungle of South America and film the movie with realism. He doesn’t tell the cast this very important piece of information though. Once there, our cast find themselves in deep trouble when they encounter real Asian soliders, which are not too happy about them coming into their territory.
The movie stars Ben Stiller as “Speedman†an action movie star who needs a good action flick to bring back his shine at the box office. Robert Downey Jr. plays “Kirk Lazarus†an Australian actor who has won several Oscars for his movies, and has a thing for going deep into the characters personalities that he portrays. Next is Jack Black who is “Jeff “Fats†Portney†a drugged addicted actor who has made his fame from movies involving flatulence humor. Then there’s Brandon T. Jackson who plays “Alpa Chino†a rapper who has his own line of energy drinks and power bars.
This movie is so funny you are going to want to see it twice. I walked out of the theater just laughing to myself at all the hilarious scenes I had just watched. Robert Downey Jr. hands down steals the movie as the white guy portraying a black guy. You have to see this performance; it’ll have you choking on your popcorn. The rest of the cast are also very funny in their roles. The jokes were evenly spread out throughout the cast, and they all have their shining moments. Also in the cast is Nick Nolte as the guy who wrote the book that the movie is based on. He gives a very good performance along with Danny R. McBride who plays “Cody†the explosives expert for the film. Then there are the cameos, and there are a lot of them. The one that stood out though is Tom Cruise as the producer who has put his money into making this movie. This was the funniest role I’ve ever seen Tom play. A VERY foul-mouthed producer who will and these are his words “will put his fist so far up someone behind that they will need to step over his platinum wedding ring to take a leakâ€, or something to that effect, you get the picture. He almost stole the movie himself if not for the constant gem of acting Robert does as a black man. Then Tom ends the movie with a scene that will send you out of the theater still laughing as the credits roll. Last week I said that “Pineapple Express†was the funniest movie I had seen so far this year. Well what a difference a week makes. This is hands down the funniest movie this summer and so far this year. I give it 3 ¾ grenades. I actually give Robert Downey Jr. 4 stars for his performance. After the success of “Iron Manâ€, he has come right behind that movie with another outstanding performance in this one. This is definitely the year his name will be reborn in Hollywood. The movie runs 1 hour and 47 mins. It’s rated R for pervasive language including sexual references, violent content and drug material. It was written by Etan Cohen, Ben Stiller, and Justin Theroux. It was directed by Ben Stller. It was distributed by DreamWorks SKG.
I don’t even have an antidote this week, just go see this movie. Ezo
Next weeks movie:TBD
