As we mentioned before, when news of Ben Stiller’s “Tropic Thunder” comedy first hit we shrugged with indifference and went about our business. But months later, when details about the satirical Vietnam-era war comedy were revealed – and more importantly when images of Robert Downey Jr. playing an obsessive method-actor playing an African American were unveiled, we were, “hold the phone,” totally intrigued all of a sudden.
But then the trailer hit. And whatever mild erection we had built up for this film quickly went limp. The concept is/was hysterical and potentially brilliant. The execution? Ugh, it looks like it has the wretched stink of Ben Stiller’s corniness is threatening to ruin it wholesale.
Stiller’s wacky buffoonery and hammy mugging is all over what could have been (and what originally sounded like) a sharp, biting satire of overblown Vietnam-era films like “Platoon” and “Hamburger Hill” (inspired by Stiller’s auditions for these very type of films back in the day – “My actor friends, myself included, were going on auditions for war movies like ‘Platoon.’ I met with Oliver Stone myself – I never read, just had a meeting. He said ‘You’re cute’ and I knew it was over.”)
The theoretically awesome premise: a pretentious director (Stephen Coogan) having difficulty making his war epic realistic, sends his actors off to real war so they’ll get a taste of what the action is really like (at the behest of insane military film supervisor Nick Nolte). The guys (Jack Black, Stiller, Downey Jr., plus Jay Baruchel and Brandon Jackson) think they’re in a very realistic movie, but their lives are actually in very real and very grave danger. And of course, Downey’s method-obsessed character takes the role so bloody seriously, he gets a controversial skin-bleaching treatment so he can both act and look black. Brilliant, right?
Downey Jr.’s character has tons of offensive comic possibilities; the idea of actors taking themselves too seriously is rife for mocking; but the trailer makes is look like the idea was lifted from a half-ass SNL sketch. Let’s hope another cut or trailer redeems this inoffensively goofy-looking film, but we’re guessing this one has already shit the bed (and not to mention already blown a wad of cash; check the cheap helicopter CGI-crash).
Watch: “Tropic Thunder” trailer