During the opening scene of TROPIC THUNDER, I was already starting to get angry about the offensiveness and lack of sensitivity of the material. This is no time to make fun of war! The visual gags and one-liners were just inappropriate.
And then, from the moment Steve Coogan's head blew off, I decided to let my guard down. And to hell with political correctness and what is proper. Not soon thereafter, I understood that TROPIC THUNDER would eventually offend just about everyone at one moment or another, and therein probably lies the point. And once I figured this out, I had a freaking blast watching the film.
Robert Downey, Jr. is, dare I say, Oscar-worthy here. And that hurts to type...this is a Ben Stiller film. But he's that good. I am not willing to give Stiller credit for how good Downey is (or Tom Cruise for that matter, where did THAT come from?) but I will give credit where it's due. I almost ALWAYS hate both Ben Stiller and Jack Black in everything they do. I avoid both of them in movies like the plague, unless they are doing animated voice-over work. And yet here they both are and not only did I tolerate them, I enjoyed them.
I think I added an extra star to my rating for that alone! So ridiculous and nutty was this film that I am unable to write a coherent review of the thing. But why get academic, anyway? This was some funny you-know-what.
3.0 out of 4
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