Since you can’t get out of the grocery store without spending a hundred bucks on milk and a few essentials… the friggin’ Russians are making everybody kind of nervous… and the two politicians left are beating each other with verbal two by fours – this country needs to take a break and have a laugh. Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr. and Jack Black have made sure to do their part by starring in this summer’s bizarre comedy.

A weird movie and a weird concept, with really weird shit happening throughout, but it works on all levels: Interesting story, lots of action, tons of laughs, and great acting. Ben Stiller wrote, directed, produced, stars, and has proved he’s got what it takes to step up big in the Hollywood arena. And what’s ironic is that this flick pokes fun at the city he’s grown up with all of his life.

Tropic Thunder is about the filming of a Vietnam war movie starring Tugg Speedman (Stiller), an action hero whose once shining star is flickering at best… Kirk Lazarus (Downey), a 5-time academy award winning Australian actor… and comedian Jeff Portnoy (Black), known for his movies featuring low-brow fart humor. Stiller brilliantly lambastes every Hollywood stereotype: the hackneyed action star with a gargantuan ego and a string of recent box office stinkers…the method actor who goes beyond great lengths to be convincing…and the drugged out partier who churns out a franchise of redundant comedies.

The plot has a rookie director trying to make a movie with three egomaniacs who won’t cooperate and have the filming a month behind schedule just three days in. So the idea is to toughen the actors up by dropping them in the middle of a real south Asian jungle, filming them in a “realistic” environment. But unfortunately, a bit “too” realistic as it turns out to be the turf of one of the world’s largest heroin producing gangs, complete with a small army of deadly killers.

This movie within a movie is based on the memoirs of veteran, Fourleaf Tayback, who lost his hands during the Vietnam war. Nick Nolte is beyond perfect for this part – growling piss and vinegar and angry how society has left him. Danny McBride is insane as the film’s special effects, pyrotechnic wizard who loves nothing more than blowing shit up. Jay Baruchel plays fellow soldier Kevin Sandusky, who is a novice actor, but the only one of the bunch who actually took time to read the script. Stand up comic, Brandon T. Jackson plays Alpa Chino (another real stereotype), a rapper who wants to cross over into film making. Matthew McConaughey is Rick “Pecker” Peck, Tugg Speedman’s overly devoted, rectum kissing agent who does everything within his being to make sure his client has TIVO in his trailer. And the real surprise is movie executive Les Grossman, played phenomenally by the always controversial, Tom Cruise. Grossman is the classic megalomaniac studio mogul, who brow beats the young director (Steve Coogan). Donning a skin-head wig and fat suit, some of the films biggest laughs come from Cruises belligerent, foul-mouthed tirades, and he is to be commended for adding a crazy comedic spark to the story. In fact, the role was an after thought, suggested by Cruise to Stiller, and re-written into the script.

Of course our three main stars are why you go to see this movie. Stiller’s character overacts while clinging to the bright light he once was. Black is perfect for the fat headed, coke fiend who needs his “jelly bean” breaks during filming. But the role truly worthy of great praise is the actor whose career has been re-ignited. Robert Downey Jr. portrays an uppity Australian Oscar winner, who portrays Sgt. Osaris, which might not be so funny if it weren’t for the fact that Osiris is a black man. The Aussie, Lazarus is a known method actor who takes his craft to another level by having pigment augmentation done to his skin, and talks like a cross between Bill Cosby and Fred Sanford throughout the entire flick. He’s drop dead hysterical as he is continually challenged by Alpa Chino to stop with the black speak, but Lazarus simply says he doesn’t come out of character until a movie hits DVD. Downey is the hit of this movie with classic lines such as “What do you mean by YOU people?”, and my favorite, “I’m the dude playing the dude disguised as another dude.”

With a film loaded with raunchy humor, racial remarks, and a plethora of stereotypes, you would figure a little controversy would follow. While test groups of military personnel and black people approved of the movie, groups of people with disabilities have made a fuss about, Ben Stiller’s character, Simple Jack – a mentally retarded boy that Speedman once played in a film that bombed. The protesters claim that Stiller’s portrayal is offensive, but with any parody, no group or individual is safe from being poked with a sharp comedic stick. For years I never heard squat about Daman Wayan’s “Handyman” character on Living Color, which was over-the-top in every way. I’m very glad to hear that Stiller, the studio, and movie houses around the country will not back down to political correctness in its most blatant form.

Now I don’t do the “thumbs-up” crap and what have you, but I will say that this is one hell of fun movie and if you’re a Man’s Man, you’re going to enjoy it thoroughly. Ben Stiller has done a terrific job putting together a cast of actors, characters, and a script that is very different, very funny, and very entertaining. A “must-see” says the Zman.

- Z