The Current

Issue date: 8/18/08 Section: Arts and Entertainment

"Tropic Thunder" is a spoof of war movies, specifically the Vietnam War film, a variety of movie that saw its heyday in the '70s and '80s. It cannot go unmentioned that the spoof genre itself flourished in the decades when Mel Brooks was king.

One will be hard-pressed to remember the last Vietnam War movie to hit theaters (Werner Herzog's "Rescue Dawn", while a story from the Vietnam War, is a small-scale character study that bears no resemblance to, say, "Platoon") and as far as the spoof genre goes, the only thing thrown our way since a certain British shag-a-dellic hipster has been the embarrassingly prolific stream of "Scary Movies" that have continued through "Date Movie" and "Epic Movie."

"Tropic Thunder" is miles beyond the above-mentioned comedies, padding a brisk, funny script with scenes of outrageous violence.

The cast is impressive. Ben Stiller (who directs and stars) gives a funny and thoroughly Stiller-esque lead performance as action star Tugg Speedman. The movie plunders as much of its comic bounty at Hollywood's expense as possible, skewering the industry at every turn.

The movie opens with a series of fabricated film trailers which serve a dual purpose of introducing us to the four main characters and being quite funny in and of themselves.

They also start a chain of cameos, which are a necessary addition of any good comedic jab at the industry, and play particularly well here. The best of these cameos (which I will leave a surprise) is by an unlikely actor who steals several scenes with dance numbers.

The plot revolves around the struggles that a team of actors face as they try to shoot a Vietnam epic in hopes of awards n. The cast of the film is fronted by Tugg Speedman (Stiller), fading action star.

Also taking part are comedian Jeff Portnoy (Black), actor Kirk Lazarus (Downey), recording star Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson), and newcomer actor Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel).

The cast and crew find themselves having a number of problems, which come to a head when a crucial scene is blown (literally blown to smithereens by a trigger-happy Danny McBride) because Speedman and Lazarus spend time arguing about who should cry in the scene.

Watching as the movie is filmed is gruff war veteran Four Leaf Tayback, played by Nick Nolte who has long since gotten to the point where he doesn't have to play grisled because he is grisled. Tayback is the real life soldier whose story Speedman and co. are trying to film.

Continued...

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