Product Description

Robert Downey Jr, Brandon T. Jackson, Bill Hader, Jack Black, Jay BaruchelDirector: Ben Stiller

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4280 in DVD
• Brand: Blu-ray Comedy
• Released on: 2009-01-26
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English, German
• Number of discs: 2
• Dimensions: .26 pounds
• Running time: 122 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
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 realise 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

Synopsis
Ben Stiller. Jack Black. Robert Downey, Jr. Comedy fans can start drooling immediately at the thought of these three funnymen joining forces in Tropic Thunder. The men star as a trio of actors whose filming experience in southeast Asia gets a little too real as they must become as tough as the characters they play to get out of a crisis.

Customer Reviews

Flawed but brilliant, on the border between cult and mainstream
Although this (the director's cut) was perhaps just a little long, I really enjoyed this film and laughed till I cried in more than one place. But it is a film where you sense that not everyone will like it. Some of the comedy is direct and irresistible: the verbally absurd, like Downey's gibberish Chinese when trying to con the leader of the drug-band or the visual humour of Stiller running along with his "son" stabbing him in the back until Stiller finally throws him off the bridge. But some is conceptual humour: remembering the idea of just what you are watching right now, or registering that the occasionally stupid, trite dialogue is crafted that way parodically.

If you are considering getting this film, my advice is stop reading any other review when they mention Tom Cruise. I have noticed that some reviewers describe the nature of his role: for me this is a spoiler! When you finally realise who he was during the credits, this is one of the funniest surprises in the film.

The film is also justly well known for the trailers at the start, these are very good, but they are by no means better or even as good as the best moments in the film proper. Its main faults are overlength - a few cuts would have worked wonders (a pity that you can't choose between Director's Cut and Theatre Version, as with so many BDs these days) - and that the opening sequence of the film until they stop rolling is not THAT funny.

As parodies go this is not in the league of "Austin Powers", which was much better as dissecting the cliches and idiocies of older Bond movies than this is at sending up war movies. But this film gains extra dimensions through ridiculing the self-importance and pretensions of Hollywood, and this provides much of the best humour. Being vague to try and avoid a spoiler, I'll say one of the funniest bits is when the studio boss does not change his attitude at all after realising his rather large initial misunderstanding.

Highly recommended, and the picture and audio quality are very much worthy of Blu-Ray. Enjoy

Tropically thunderous...
The film sets out to parody the whole war film genre and does a very good job. To have Robert Downey Jr. as a black Sergeant was excellent. Previous reviewers have mentioned the bad acting, but have missed the point completely in that there is SUPPOSED to be bad acting. All the characters are supposed to be larger than life, loud, he men types but in love with their best buddy (which they obviously can't admit) and are all method actors, based on various war film characters. Tom Berenger in Platoon and the loud mouthed Sergeant in Full Metal Jacket are examples of the types of guys the characters in this film are trying to portray. And they pull it off very well and in particular Robert Downey as he can't stop method acting when he's 'off screen'.

Don't take it too seriously and you'll find it an excellent film...

A good parody of a film!
As a fan of the likes of Zoolander and other Ben Stiller films i have to say that this film does not disappoint. It is not a comedy as such filled with wise cracking jokes and will not be for everyone but fans of parody or spoof films will get the humour and find it enjoyable! All in all i enjoyed it a lot would happily watch it a couple times more such is the subtle humour within the film.