A Thundering comeback

There’s a certain point in an actor’s career when audiences walk out of theaters scratching their heads and thinking, “What the hell is this guy doing making this movie?” For Jack Black, I thought it was The Holiday. And let’s face it: he didn’t have to do Walk Hard. Although I can’t really knock Jack Black, because I thought he was good in Margot at the Wedding. For Ben Stiller, it was The Heartbreak Kid and Along Came Polly. Ben Stiller is so much more talented than what we see in The Heartbreak Kid. I keep trying to remind myself that this is the same guy who penned Reality Bites, what I consider a really great (albeit overly yuppie) movie. And of course, there’s Robert Downey Jr., who had such a great year with Iron Man. This guy came out of nowhere, after being in a bunch of nobody roles [Gothika, The Shaggy Dog] after his personal recovery and slowly built his career up. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang showcased how awesome an actor he is, and how he has such a good sense of humor.  Zodiac was his official big movie back as a serious actor, and so was Good Night and Good Luck. But when Iron Man hit theaters, he officially became the most sought-after actor on the planet. I’m sure imdb.com can give you all that information, so I’ll get straight to the point: Tropic Thunder was awesome.

I went into the film expecting mostly what you normally expect from a Jack Black movie: a lot of obnoxious loud noises and the occasional funny line here or there. I mostly went to see it because I was interested to see how Robert Downey Jr. was going to pull off playing a black man in what seems to be the most outrageous role ever written. Needless to say, this was the most outrageous movie of the season. From the get-go, which comprised of trailers strewn together specially for the movie [Satan's Alley with Robert Downey Jr. and Tobey Maguire playing gay monks was particularly memorable], the film was just laugh-out-loud funny. I like how it makes fun of actors and the film industry in general–which is mostly what the film is all about: a parody of the hilarity that is movie-making.

Robert Downey Jr. plays Kirk Lazarus, a parody of Russell Crowe and method actors in general. Lazarus is a “serious” actor who is so serious about nailing the roles he plays that he undergoes pigment-altering surgery to turn him into a black man. I swear, I sometimes forgot that I was watching Robert Downey Jr., and I consider that a successful job on his part. He was so convincing that I swear you think you’re looking at a completely different actor. I can’t imagine being on the set of this movie, having to stifle your giggles whenever he spouted his “motherfuckers!”

Jack Black was also pretty funny in the film. Although I am not a big fan of his, I thought he held his own in this movie. His role is a parody of Eddie Murphy–an actor who only knows how to do gross-out funny films. Add a little drug abuse problem, and you score.

Ben Stiller (who wrote and directed this film with pal Justin Theroux) brought me back to his Zoolander days, and completely went all out in this film. According to an interview Stiller, Black and Downey Jr. made with Entertainment Weekly, Stiller recalls how long it took to make this movie, script-wise, and I would assume so. It seems like such a brilliant concept: a bunch of high-profile actors take on an “epic movie”, but can’t seem to get along, so they are forced into a dangerous real-life situation so they can act. However, with characters that are so individually rich like what you have in this film, getting the right actor to play the part is key. I don’t think this movie would have scored had Danny McBride not been in it, or had Matthew McConaughey not been cast [brilliantly] as a savvy Hollywood agent hellbent on making his client [Ben Stiller] a star. Tropic Thunder has so many awesome moments that showcase each of these actors in full, but at the same time, it is not all about physical comedy, which I am so grateful for, and partly why I think it scores a lot. It would be easy to just go the Will Ferrell route and look like a complete doofus while doing something you would only see on Jackass, but they chose not to do that. Stiller and Theroux (who is reportedly slated to whip up the script for the much-buzzed-about Iron Man sequel) made sure the lines were on-point and outrageous, so that it didn’t just seem like a star-studded cast grabbing at straws.

To Stiller’s credit, it must have been a lot of work to handle such a star-studded cast. But I think it all boiled down to how much they all liked him. With this movie, Stiller reportedly ran a tight ship, and I think that’s really commendable, considering how he needs to be likeable, funny, yet at the same time, command the respect of his castmates and crew as their director. This movie is kind of in the realm of Apatow (Judd Apatow, that is) because Stiller shows what Hollywood circles he runs with by casting most of his pals. But when I heard Tom Cruise was going to be in it, and when I heard how outrageous his role was, I was sold.

Tom Cruise gets into character, donning a fat suit for his role in Tropic Thunder.

I mean, Tom Cruise has been having a really tough time in his career. After the whole couch-jumping extravaganza on Oprah, and the Scientology bit plus the war of words with Brooke Shields, the public perception of him is pretty bleak. Most people would consider this guy humorless and uptight. I used to be completely smitten with Tom Cruise (come on, we’ve all seen Top Gun), because he was a brilliant actor and pretty gorgeous too. But then he just started doing the same roles over and over again. Minority Report, Mission: Impossible III…even his supposed “breakthrough” acting in Jerry Maguire and Vanilla Sky seemed a little too tame for me. I wanted to see a Tom Cruise that just completely immersed himself in a role; a Tom Cruise who completely forgot that he was the Tom Cruise and just went with it. I wanted to see a Tom Cruise that didn’t care how he looked or how he presented himself. And damn did he deliver in Tropic Thunder. I think he just about stole the show with his impression of a Hollywood bigwig with a foul mouth and gross chest hair. I think this role in this movie was just the thing he needed to launch himself back into the fray.

Actors aside, let’s talk more about the movie. I thought the concept was interesting and the delivery was on-point. There were scenes that were just unbelievably gross, but they were still funny in the context of what-if-we-made-a-war-movie-and-thought-a-real-head-was-a-fake-one. You could really see the parodies in the film and it just shows how the actors themselves have a sense of humor about their line of work. Even for a movie that is at its core a comedy, there was some pretty decent action in it. A lot of explosions, some stellar shooting scenes, and I can’t forget a scene where Robert Downey Jr. is dressed up as a rice farmer and he whips out his guns at the enemy and goes, “I’m a lead farmer, motherfucker!” Some really great lines, and just about everything is made fun of. There were times when I just shook my head and thought, “Dude, this line shouldn’t be funny but it just is,” because of how well they were delivered. And of course, some credit should go to the prop, make-up and costume people for just how believable the whole thing was, especially the blood and guts, and of course, for making Tom Cruise look fat and gross.

So all in all, I think this is a movie about celebrating comebacks. It’s a celebration of the comeback of the kind of comedy that doesn’t involve Will Ferrell or Steve Carell. It’s a celebration of a good partnership between Theroux and Stiller as writers, and of course, between the cast members. And of course, it’s the comeback of a self-deprecating Tom Cruise, in what I am sure will be his most talked-about role ever.