Tropic Thunder (Unrated Director's Cut)
by Ben Stiller
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Anthony Ruivivar, Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Jeff Kahn, Robert Downey Jr.Director: Ben Stiller
Brand: Paramount
Writer: Ben Stiller
Writer: Etan Cohen
Writer: Justin Theroux
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 120 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-11-18
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Dreamworks Video
Product features:
- Unrated Director's Cut. Special Features on Disc 1 - Filmmaker and Cast Commentaries.
- Special Features on Disc 2 * Before the Thunder * The Hot LZ * Blowing S#%t Up
- * Designing the Thunder * The Cast of Tropic Thunder * Rain of Madness
- * Dispatches from the Edge of Madness * Deleted and Extended Scenes * Alternate Ending
- * MTV Movie Awards - Tropic Thunder * Full Mags * Video Rehearsals
Movie Reviews of Tropic Thunder (Unrated Director's Cut)
Movie Review: Nam Bam!
Summary: 5 Stars
OK, so I am not a big Ben Stiller fan. As far as I am concerned, the man really cannot act and his films are gross, stupid and exploitative. But Tropic Thunder came recommended from my artsy kid, so I felt obligated to check it out. And glad I am that I did.
I don't ask or much from a film -- original ideas, tight writing, expressive acting, and a minimum of plot holes. Thankfully, craft is written all over this film. Stiller takes deadly aim at the Vietnam movie genre. The deliciously convoluted plot has Stiller's platoon shooting a Vietnam film that is far behind schedule and over budget. The only solution seems to be to put the spoiled actors in a warlike situation. But a series of events lands the boys in a real shooting war, and they need to use their meager wits to survive. By building his platoon from a potpourri of the genre's types, Stiller get to send up Nam films, the film industry, actors, and the genre's stock characters. His platoon has all the ingredients of the classic Nam film. There's the jive-talking black sergeant; the swaggering white honcho (Stiller), the nerd, the fat white guy (Jack Black) and the young black "blood". The combination gives Stiller the chance to set his types against each other to destroy old stereotypes. Taking method acting to the extreme, the older black character (Morton Downey, Jr.) is actually a white Aussie who underwent a pigmentation change for the movie. He speaks a 1960s black jive that thoroughly infuriates the "real" black character, a rapper who purveys a more contemporary "street" lingo. Behind this crew of misfits is Nick Nolte, playing a bedraggled, muttering, handless Vietnam war vet who wrote a book about his Nam exploits. An amazing Tom Cruise plays an out-of-control film mogul who strikes terror into his crews, even via teleconference.
Some of Stiller's swipes and plotting are pretty obvious. There's the big hetero character who turns out not to be and the big Asian crime boss who turns out not to be. And Stiller really has just two acting faces: stupidly confused and confusedly stupid. But, giving credit where credit is due, he was ridden the stupid horse all he way to the bank and beyond. Some folks might be offended by Stiller's portrayal of retarded "Simple Jack," a recurring reference to a role from his character's past that demonstrates his low-rent talent. But it worked for Forrest Gump, didn't it?
In Tropic Thunder, Stiller is at his parodic best. Don't miss the fake previews (I did) that set up the characters in their own normal genres. And don't miss the numerous riffs on successful Nam movies -- Stiller's take-off on the iconic scenes from Apocalypse Now, for instance, make that film look like a parody of itself.
The second disk, filled with the de rigueur cast interviews, is just so-so. I don't care about how they used CGI sparingly, and I only saw enough of the storyboarding to begin to whet my appetite. The film's visuals are terrific and stand on their own -- better to watch Disk 1 twice. But lay down the subtitles, because a lot of the terrific writing is drowned out by copter noise and deliberately garbled delivery.
Great Stuff! I might go against my better judgment and pick up another couple Stiller films!
Summary of Tropic Thunder (Unrated Director's Cut)
TROPIC THUNDER - DVD MovieIt's not really a knock to say that nothing in Tropic Thunder is funnier than its first five minutes, so sly that--especially for people watching in theaters--you don't realize right away they are the opening minutes of the movie. This outrageous comedy begins with a series of fake previews, each introducing one of the main characters in the film-proper (not that there's anything proper about this film) and each bearing the familiar logo of a different motion picture studio: Universal, DreamWorks SKG, et al. Such playing fast and loose with corporate talismans verges on sacrilege, but it's an index of how much le tout Tinseltown endorses the movie as a demented valentine to itself. The premise is that the cast of a would-be "Son of Rambo" movie shooting in some Southeast Asian jungle get into a real shooting war with drug-smuggling montagnards. Don't ask--though the movie does have an answer--why such highly paid, usually ultra-pampered personnel as superhero Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), Mozart of fart comedy Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), hip-hop artist Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson), and five-time Oscar-winner Kirk Lazarus from Aus-try-leeah (Robert Downey Jr.) should be running through the jungle unattended and very vulnerable. It matters only that the real-life cast has a high time kidding their own profession and flexing their comedic muscles. Bonus points go to Stiller for co-writing the script (with Justin Theroux) and directing, and to Downey, brilliant as a white actor surgically turned black actor for his role and utterly committed to staying in character no matter what ("I don't drop character till I done the DVD commentary").
Be warned: The movie, too, is committed--to being an equal-opportunity offender. Its political incorrectness extends not only to Lazarus's black-like-me posturing but also Speedman's recent, Sean Penn?style Oscar bid playing a cognitively challenged farmboy--or, in Lazarus's deathless phrase, "going the full retard." Others in the cast include Steve Coogan as a director out of his depth, Nick Nolte as the Viet-vet novelist whose book inspired the film-within-the-film, Matthew McConaughey as Speedman's sun-blissed agent back home, and Tom Cruise--bald, fat-suited, and profane--as an epically repulsive studio head. Two hours running time is a mite excessive, but otherwise, what's not to like? --Richard T. Jameson
Stills from Tropic Thunder (Click for larger image)
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