It'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").

Starring: Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., Nick Nolte, Steve Coogan
Directed by: Ben Stiller
Written by: Ben Stiller, Justin Theroux, Etan Cohen
Produced by: Ben Stiller, Brian Taylor, Eric McLeod, Justin Theroux
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Widescreen, NTSC
Language: English
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
Region: Region 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Number of Discs: 1
Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio : Dreamworks Video
DVD Release Date : 2008-11-18
Run Time : 107 minutes
ASIN/ISBN : B001H5X7I4
Retail $29.98



Tropic Thunder

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