Truly, it’s been a summer for jokers — and I’m not just talking to "The Dark Knight."
When the bat’s been away, Steve Carell ("Get Smart"), Will Ferrell ("Step Brothers") and Seth Rogen ("Pineapple Express") have all come out to court, and notched up lucrative returns, too.
Ben Stiller’s every so often hilarious "Tropic Thunder" is easily the biggest of the summer’s blockbuster comedies — and certainly the goriest. It’s a high-concept meta-movie nearly an all-star Vietnam War picture (also called "Tropic Thunder") that goes very, very wrong. Stiller’s "Tropic Thunder," on the other management, gets it mostly reason. Which is just as well, because it looks wish it cost an arm and a leg to make.
The movie-within-a-movie is directed by Damian Cockburn (Steve Coogan) and stars chubby clown Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), rapper Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson), action beefcake Tugg Speedman (Stiller) and Aussie method man Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.). The latter is a sensitive chameleon who takes his flair so seriously he has undergone skin pigmentation treatment for his role as a black GI. (Any resemblance to Russell Crowe is entirely superficial but can hardly be coincidental.)
Cockburn quickly loses the trust of his merciless, potty-mouthed studio boss (in one of the film’s more inspired insider gags, he’s played by a real-life studio boss you may just recognize as Tom Cruise). So when disabled Vietnam check out "Four Leaf" Tayback (Nick Nolte) — the inspiration for the movie — suggests dropping them into the jungle and shooting the picture with esoteric digital cameras, "guerrilla-style," it seems like a stroke of genius. That is, until the stars forfeit contact with the outside midwife precisely and awaken themselves in a firefight with Golden Triangle drug lords.
"Tropic Thunder" is willing to push its gags right to the edge — and every once in a while over it. In the most famous pattern, the film has perform into flak from disabled advocates for its repeated use of the word "retard," referring to Speedman’s previous bid for artistic respectability, a sentimental "Forrest Gump"-style Oscar bid by the name of "Simple Jack."
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