Tropic Thunder (Unrated Director's Cut + BD Live) [Blu-ray] - Harry Potter 6 Books

Product Description

Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 11/18/2008 Run time: 122 minutes Rating: Ur

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #166 in DVD
• Brand: Paramount
• Released on: 2008-11-18
• Rating: Unrated
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 107 minutes

Amazon.com
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").

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)

Customer Reviews

shameful
Blasphemy is where I draw the line. What is comical about the line the helicopter is God and I am His Son, Jesus Christ? That line comes after suffering through a half hour of filthy language. Save your money and your soul. Don't watch this.

Tropic Thunder DVD
Tropic Thunder arrived in A-1 condition on time. I would purchase from this vendor again.

Repugnant, with Only a Few Laughs to Offer
This is a "guy's movie." I am not a guy. I think I watched this in error.

What I really expected was some tongue-in-cheek, war-lite movie. It is sort of war-lite. Sort of. It's not really that funny -- I guess I expected some Zoolander antics. Oh, there's some of that, but mostly, this film falls flat.

With that said, there are some pretty funny things in this movie -- no, very, very funny things in this movie. It's unapologetically offensive throughout. I adored the false trailers preceding the film. When Ben Stiller flings Half-Squat and the child crawls out of the river and crosses his arms, I thought I would die laughing. When Stiller accidentally kills a fluffy sweetheart of the animal kingdom, I laughed a lung up my nose. Tom Cruise's unlikable character was delightfully over the top, and his dancing during the credits was simply fabulous. Robert Downey, Jr., was almost always a winner in every single scene.

Have you noticed something here? You know, the fact I mention only two out of the five "actors" who wander into the jungle? Yeah. Unfortunately, that's ultimately what killed it for me. Most of the characters were SO unlikable and unfunny that I found myself wishing they would all die -- even Stiller was not that enjoyable, and Jack Black was downright awful, and "Alpa Chino's" character was just plain bland. With the exception of Downey and Jay Baruchel (the not-star-powered fellow who played the kid in glasses, Keven Sandusky). Indeed, when Sandusky is hurt, I wanted to throw the DVD case at the screen. He was the only redeemable, nice character in the whole film. (I am not exaggerating. It's true.)

The plot is instantly forgettable and inane, which you would expect for any Stiller comedy; but since the movie takes a more serious turn near the end of the film (every single "big-name actor" has to be true to himself and face the lies he has constructed to keep himself afloat... sigh), the silly plot actually becomes a detriment.

Also, although the humor really hits the mark every now and then, it's just that... "every now and then". Most of the time you're busy hating the characters and hoping they find more land mines.

So in the end, I kept wondering... was this an adventure/lite-war movie attempting to be comedic and light-hearted, or was this a comedy that got a little too serious? Either way, it's a bit of a let-down. It's so dark, and the characters are so awful, that you end up leaving the film feeling trashy.