Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.

Lucky bastard.

I’ve talked to a few people now who have seen this one in rough form, and to a person, they’ve been effusive in their praise. This sounds like it may well end up as one of the best things Ben Stiller’s even been involved in, and there are so many great roles and great ideas in what I’ve already heard about this that I’m tempted to just block out everything else from now until release because I want to see it myself.

But who am I fooling? This looks like a blast, so I’ll take every nugget of info from now until I can see it myself. So check out this spy’s reaction from a screening earlier tonight...

Harry,

Tonight I was able to go with a friend of mine down to Long Beach to see a screening of "Tropic Thunder". Let me first tell you that they had so many people in line to see it they ran it on two screens. While in line, the guy who was running the screening kept telling everyone that this was going to be an "R" rated comedy, and that if you were offended easily to reconsider watching the movie. So my guess is that they are planning on keeping this a hard R, and after watching the film, i cannot see how they could edit it down. So here is my take on the film.

The fake previews lead into the film, and they are fantastic. Each trailer introduced the three main actors, with specific satires of certain genres. Ben Stiller's character plays and action star who has now made at least five sequels to one movie, Jack Black's trailer is the most brilliant satire; a movie about a fat family with all the characters played by Black in heavy prosthetics. The film was called "The Fatties" and the shot at Eddie Murphy's career made everyone in the theatre laugh hysterically. Robert Downey Jr. is the most serious of the actors, his trailer was for a movie called "Satan's Alley", where Downey plays a priest who falls in love with another priest. A great cameo here by Tobey Maguire (the trailer references him as MTV's best kiss award winner). The only other one was a fake commercial, and all i will say about that is "Booty Sweat".

After the trailers the film shifts right into the middle of a scene from "Tropic Thunder", the movie that Stiller, Black, and Downey are all now in. Right away Downey starts stealing the scene, and it is almost scary how he looks and sounds almost nothing like Downey. Spouting blood from helmets and intestines falling out of stomachs happen in over the top war movie fashion, and Jack Black ends up hanging from a helicopter. The scene ends with Stiller in the midst of dying and Downey there to console him. Stiller yells cut and we get our first introduction to the pseudo rivalry between Stiller and Downey that continues throughout the film. I dont know who the actor is that plays the director, but he fits the role well. We get the basic rundown of whats happening on set, including the extremely obscene pyrotechnics guy and Nick Nolte as the soldier who wrote the book on which the movie is being based. The film then moves into a party scene and we are introduced to Jack Blacks drug addiction, Downeys method acting that doesnt stop when the cameras do, and Stiller, being, well, Stiller. The greatest introduction comes when we first see the man behind the funding of "Tropic Thunder", and it is possibly the best surprise of the entire film. This may be a big spoiler for some, so be warned. The hairy, over weight, and now balding billionaire is played by none other than Tom Cruise, spewing the word fuck every chance he can conceivably get. The theatre went
nuts. To see Cruise in a role like this was encouraging. Yes he may be one of the most insane men living on this planet right now, but he is goddamn hilarious in this role. And the decision to keep him coming back throughout the entire movie was a great choice.

Now I dont want to give a description of the entire movie, but I hope this gives an idea of the tone of the film. There are cameos galore, references to almost every film that had an actor play a retarded person, and Jack Black going through heroin withdrawals that lead him to making statements like "I will cradle your balls and swallow your sweet gravy if you let me go..." and talking to a large animal saying "I want to bite your hide skin". However, Downey steals the entire movie, especially the banter between him and the actual African american in the cast (who is supposed to be a rapper turned actor). I was a bit let down with Stiller's performance, and was almost let down by Black's until halfway through the film when he started going through withdrawals in the middle of the Vietnam Jungle. One other thing i could have done without is the leader of the Vietnamese heroin ring who captures the cast is played by a very unconvincing twelve year old, literally. But making up for that is Tom Cruise dancing to awful rap music while trying to convince Stiller's agent, played by none other than Matt McConaughey, to let Stiller die in the jungle.

The film is full of incredible cameos and genuinely hilarious performances. It definitely is one of the better satirical comedies I have seen in a long time. It is also great to see Jack Black and Ben Stiller in a good R rated comedy again. However, Robert Downey comes
out on top with the best performance. I laughed hard and consistently, and in that i felt the film was a great success. Even my roomate, who i thought lived his life emotionless, laughed quite a few times. I cant wait to see this again in august. Hope the review was helpful.

-taymckay