Tropic Thunder

Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. lead an ensemble cast in Tropic Thunder, an action comedy about a group of self-absorbed actors who set out to make the most expensive war film ever.  After ballooning costs force the studio to cancel the movie, the frustrated director refuses to stop shooting, leading his cast into the jungles of Southeast Asia, where they encounter real bad guys.

The first few minutes of Tropic Thunder give you an idea of what the film is about.  The fake trailers that open the movie poke fun at certain actors and certain types of movies but they all feature prominent studio logos which shows that in Hollywood everyone wanted to be in on the joke.

Ben Stiller co-wrote Tropic Thunder and also took the reigns as Director (his first outing as such since Zoolander).  In this big action, big budget comedy, you feel Ben gets to poke fun at all that he doesn’t like about the movie making process, from stars acting as drama queens to disgusting studio bosses sticking their foul mouthed beaks in, and you can’t help but laugh along with him the whole way.

I know some critics have been a bit harsh with TT, saying that the jokes miss fire and all the tongue in cheek jokes are a little too tongue in cheek but I thoroughly enjoyed it.  The performances by all the leads are good although Robert Downey Jnr’s Australian white actor, playing a black man, steals most of the scenes he’s in.  But the best performance by far is the surprise cameo by Tom Cruise.  If you haven’t seen anything about his character yet I don’t want to spoil it, lets just say he’s hilarious.

If you’re looking for some low-brow laugh out loud moments then Tropic Thunder is just the DVD for you.  To give you an idea of how much fun the movie was, check out this promo for it HERE.

There’s two formats of DVD available, a one disc standard affair or a 3 Disc Directors Cut edition.  If you want our tip, go for the 3 disc option.  And yes, Downey doesn’t drop character until the DVD commentary is done.

 

Directors Cut DVD Extras

-Trailers

-Deleted Scenes

-Directors Cut of Tropic Thunder

-Rain of Madness (spoof documentary)

-Alternate Ending

-Filmmaker commentary

-Actors commentary

-Multiple making of featurettes

-MTV Movie Awards promo (as per above clip)