Tropic Thunder (2008)

Summary

A group of self-absorbed actors get lost in the jungle while making a Vietnam War movie.

Director

Ben Stiller

Downey Factor

High.

Character

Kirk Lazarus, an Award-winning method actor tackling the role of a black soldier.

Looks

Mostly in blackface, with brief moments of blue eyes and blond hair.

Performance

Daring, hysterical and genius. Earned him Golden Globe and Oscar nominations.

Line

Check it out—Dustin Hoffman, Rain Man, look retarded, act retarded, not retarded. Counted toothpicks, cheated cards. Autistic, sure. Not retarded. You know Tom Hanks—Forrest Gump. Slow, yes. Retarded, maybe. Braces on his legs. But he charmed the pants off Nixon and won a ping-pong competition. That ain't retarded. Peter Sellers—Being There. Infantile, yes. Retarded, no. You went full retard, man. Never go full retard. You don't buy that? Ask Sean Penn, 2001, I Am Sam. Went full retard, went home empty-handed.

Accent

Varies between somewhat Southern US and Australian.

Dies, Gay or Villain

No, no, no.

Cast

Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Brandon T. Jackson, Jay Baruchel, Steve Coogan, Matthew McConaghey, Tom Cruise, Nick Nolte

Connection

Ben Stiller in Black and White and That's Adequate.

Tobey Maguire in Wonder Boys

Danny McBride in Due Date

RDJ Says

When Ben called and said hey I'm doing this thing — I think maybe Sean Penn had passed on it, possibly wisely — and I thought, "Yeah I'll do that after Iron Man." Then I started thinking, "This is a terrible idea."" Then I thought, "Well, hold on dude, get real here, where is your heart? And my heart is A. I get to be black for a summer, in my mind, so there's something in it for me The other thing is, I get to hold up to nature the insane self-involved hypocrisy of artists and what they think they're allowed to do… and also Ben who is a masterful artist and director […] if you had seen him when he was directing this movie, you would've been like, "I'm watching David Lean, I'm watching Chaplin, I'm watching Coppola." He knew exactly what the vision for this was, he executed it. It was impossible to have it not have it be an offensive nightmare of a movie. And 90% of my black friends were like 'dude, that was great' and [the other 10%], you know, I can't disagree with them, but I know where my heart was. And I think it's never an excuse to do something that is out of place and not of its time … Again, in my defense, Tropic Thunder was about how wrong [blackface] is … My mother was horrified, [she said] 'Bobby, I'm telling you, I have a bad feeling about this.' And I was like, 'Yeah, me too.' ... We'd meet at 7 AM and we'd just power through the hour and a half, two hours of [makeup] application. At that point, other cast members would start rolling in to have a nice leisurely breakfast ... I prefer not to call it blackface. My character had a controversial skin pigmentation ... I loved being a black man. I was like, this man is so beautiful. He's deep. He talks from his spirit, and he knows he is surrounded by morons. But he's going to usher and show them the way ... Fortunately, it's about an affably self-important white guy who thinks he understands the "black experience." It was so wrong and outrageous that it was forgivable. But I certainly was happy to hear from my African-American friends that they were okay with it, and some of them even delighted in telling me what relative it reminded them of. Somebody just told me just the other day that they're convinced that I was channeling Wesley Snipes. He's a pretty cool customer, so I don't want to presume I would be up to the task ... I remember a Rolling Stone article making the connection between my role being embraced as not offensive and the possibility of a black president. I don't want to say I was directly responsible [for Obama's victory]. I'll leave that for the historians, but do you think I could at least get a half-assed tour of the Oval Office as a result? ... I don't think Tropic Thunder was about me or even about what I did. Maybe some courage was involved. I believe it was just an interesting year. It was all a cresting wave of what seemed like a major turning point in American culture, and I was peripherally involved in some small way ... I was gob smacked when I woke up one morning and heard, "You're nominated for Tropic Thunder," and I was like, "Huh?" If someone really takes a risk, it doesn't get dismissed ... I felt like, I want to work with Ben and Jack, but my way into the movie is I've got to be tarred and feathered for three months and maybe have my reputation destroyed. That was my fear. And then we started doing makeup tests, and it was like Mr. Potato Face. "Can we take that wig off and put these teeth in? Now put this on. Now put that on." But by the time we were finally in rehearsals, I knew I had it ... The sun was beating down, and we'd rehearsed for four hours, and then Ben Stiller would say, "Make it more of a caricature," so the next thing you know, I'm going, "I'm gonna get me some crawfish and collard greens." ... There was Ben Stiller, who to me is the closest living thing to Chaplin we have today as an actor and director. He's devoted to detail but also loves the feeling of a loose fish in his hand. I also thought about my dad's film Putney Swope and how that was about a creative black man who, only by accident in 1968, finds himself in a position of true influence and power ... I thought it was a ridiculous and potentially incendiary idea, but I blame it on Dreamworks and Ben Stiller ... Ben Stiller reminds me of Charlie Chaplin because he could have done any department head's role in the movie without the movie suffering ... Have you seen [Ben Stiller's] arms in the movie? They were huge. He was fucking ripped. If somebody had come out at the end and said that Ben was cruising on steroids the whole time we were shooting, I would have said, "Oh god, that explains it." ... It's a brilliant character. Ben made this very, very interesting, sophisticated, outrageous kind of farce about actors and Hollywood. And it really doesn't stray all that far from the real thing ... We're not just sending up the industry, we're kind of, in a way, destroying any possibility of us having a leg to stand on in the future ... I have been so wantonly, flagrantly humiliated [in my personal life] that anything that could happen as a result of a movie doesn't even register ... Kirk Lazarus was [originally supposed to be] Irish. And while I could probably have done an Irish accent, I don't know if I could have done it as weIl. And because I had already done an Australian accent when I did Natural Born Killers, it was out of convenience's sake. It winds up serving the greater purpose of the movie better ... My heart was in the right place, and when the character's voice happened, I could do no wrong. This has happened only one other time, and it was with my character in Natural Born Killers, who interestingly enough was another Australian.

Time & Place

Present day (2008), Southeast Asia.

Gossip

Downey went immediately into this movie after filming Iron Man, and co-star Terrence Howard said, "Downey said he played me, like he literally put a picture of me up in his trailer and said, 'I want to become Terrence.' It's okay. I think it's perfect, it's absolutely beautiful. It may open up the way for me to play a white guy one day. I'm using it as a precedent."

Availability

Released in theaters 13 August 2008. On DVD in regions 1, 2, 3 and 4; also on Blu-Ray.

DVD Detail

Robert Downey Jr does in-character commentary, along with Jack Black and Ben Stiller (who are not in character). Available on the 2-disc director's cut version of the DVD.

Foreign Titles

Argentina: Una Guerra de Película (A War of Film)
Brazil: Trovão Tropical (Tropical Thunder)
Croatia: Tropska grmljavina (Tropic Thunder)
Estonia: Troopiline kõu (Tropic Thunder)
France: Tonnerre sous les Tropiques (Thunder in the Tropics)
Germany: Hol Dir die volle Dröhnung (Get a Full Shot)
Greece: Tropiki kataigida (Tropical Storms)
Poland: Jaja w tropikach (Tropic Thunder)
Portugal: Tempestade Tropical (Tropical Storm)
Spain: Una Guerra Muy Perra (A Very Bitchy War)
Turkey: Tropik Firtina (Tropical Storm)

Rotten Tomatoes

83% fresh | 221 reviews

Critical View

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Like a postmodern magician, Downey shows how it's really done—without detracting from the pleasures available to those who don't care at all how it's done, just that the entertainment includes explosions. Even an outsider with no obsessive interest in, say, how to rig the fake blood and severed limbs of movie battle will love Downey's mid-gore Method struggle for character motivation. And all it takes to marvel, through non-PC tears of laughter, at the wisdom delivered by Downey about how to win an Oscar for portraying a handicap is a pulse.

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: The pomposity of the Oscars is the hook, but it's the word retard that provides the squirm. If Mr. Downey—who at this point in his career apparently can do no wrong, even in blackface—can't make this bit work, it's because the bit is unworkable.

Anthony Venutolo, The Star-Ledger: At a time when even the New Yorker is having trouble selling irony, this is dangerous comedy. But Stiller and Downey clearly make the joke not about the impersonation, but the impersonator's cluelessness ... Never raising his voice from what he's convinced is an authentically "black" register, making every bit play like an inspired improvisation, he delivers the kind of comic turn that revived Johnny Depp's career in the first Pirates. Iron Man was nice, but don't be surprised if this one wins Downey a nomination.

Does It Hold Up

It still remains to be seen if (or when) the tide is going to turn on this movie. Satire usually offends some people who take it at face value, only seeing that the characters in this movie say and do offensive things, missing the larger point that they do these things because they're self-absorbed, out of touch idiots. But surprisingly, when the movie came out, this kind of backlash was about Simple Jack and Robert Downey Jr was nominated for an Oscar (and every other major acting award) for his performance as a self-absorbed idiot in blackface.

2 Reasons to See It

1. It's a rare comedy full of hilarious self-absorbed characters who aren't blind to each other's flaws.
2. There will probably never be another movie like this ever again.

Overall

Hands down one of his best performances and the funniest movie he's ever done. A must-see.

If You Like It

You might also like Sherlock Holmes (2009), Soapdish (1991)

Photos

Video