Review of Tropic Thunder (2008) by Carina O — 16 Jun 2012
Robert Downey, Jr. was nominated for an Oscar in a comedy playing a method actor in blackface for a failing war movie. That statement alone should be enough to sell Tropic Thunder to viewers. The movie is essentially a comedic Apocalypse Now: sprawling, repetitive, scattershot, thin, at times unfocused and often brilliant.
Everything that should not be funny - fat suits, disemboweling, beating up children and, most notably, blackface - works in the best ways. In an era where comedies are ranked exclusively by their number of quotables, Tropic Thunder tosses off one-liners so quickly, it becomes numbing.
Most of the characters are single-joke hucksters, with those of Black, Stiller, McConaughey and McBride wearing fast, and the film slows considerably from a nonstop opening, but then there's Tom Cruise, who gives Downey a run as unrecognizable, committed and hilarious.
Yes, like Les Grossman, Tropic Thunder is cheap and profane, but it's also undeniably awesome.
This review of Tropic Thunder (2008) was written by Carina O on 16 Jun 2012.
Tropic Thunder has generally received positive reviews.
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