Most movie watchers know that Hollywood is a strange place. Hollywood is almost a different country, with its own rules, its own linguistics, and it’s often insulated from the real world. The men and women have been lifted onto pedestals sometimes forget their roots and grow humungous egos. Ben Stiller knows this too. Mr. Stiller has taken the weirdness and inflated sense of self worth that Hollywood exudes and crafted a fairly biting satire of it all in the form of Tropic Thunder.
The Meta-movie
Tropic Thunder is a movie-within-a-movie. Joining Ben Stiller as the main cast are Jack Black, Brandon T. Jackson, and Jay Baruchel. While these people all play their parts well, none of them come close to this movie’s saving grace, Robert Downey Jr. His character, an Australian method actor named Kirk Lazarus, punched the film in its face, put the film on his shoulders, and carried it through to the credits.
Downey Jr. has complete and nearly effortless control of the characters he plays. In the movie that these prima donna actors are shooting (called Tropic Thunder) Kirk Lazarus undergoes facial reconstructive surgery to play a Vietnam era platoon’s African-American sergeant.
Robert Downey Jr. and Controversy
In the hands of a lesser actor this role could have easily opened up the wounds of minstrel shows from Hollywood’s horrific past (and present). Instead, we are shown a very complex character, made all the more so by virtue of being played by an emotionally unstable method actor.
Brandon T. Jackson, playing the popular rap artist Alpa Chino (purveyor of fine Chinos at the Gap and a line of energy products) continually reminds Kirk that he is skating a thin line. The movie also continually fails to provide a real reason why Lazarus even continues his black persona even when everyone knows that no movie is being filmed. So brilliant are the exchanges and so beyond superficial their subtext is what makes Downey Jr.’s character work. Downey Jr. plays it so unbelievably straight it is mind boggling.
There is no reason to be upset about his role. The writer of this article is Jewish and is fine with Tom Cruise playing the stereotypical Jewish Hollywood mogul Tom Cruise is ridiculous and not to be taken seriously. .Over the top stereotypes are meant to get you to understand how terrible these stereotypes are. Only by confronting them can we acknowledge that in the real world such things don’t fly. This is a movie about movies, just deal with it.
Good Points
- Robert Downey Jr. began the summer with Iron Man and brings summer to a close with Tropic Thunder and did both so bloody well
- Ben Stiller finally found a script worthy of turning into a film
- Jack Black is a great supporting cast member as the drug addicted Jeff Portnoy
- Makes you want Booty Sweat Energy drink and Bust-a-Nut Protein bars
Bad Points
- Ben Stiller is still just Ben Stiller. At the core of Tug Speedman there is still not much different than any other role Ben Stiller has played over the past several years. We all know he can do better.
- Not exactly laugh out loud funny until Brandon Jackson and Robert Downey Jr. are throwing back quips at each other over Downey Jr.’s blackface
- Tom Cruise, while entertaining, was a bit too creepy
- Caused certain special interest groups to get sticks up their bottoms
