TROPIC THUNDER Film Review - 2/11/08

After dire movie 'The Heartbreak Kid' I avoided Ben Stiller for awhile and really should have known better with "Tropic Thunder" being written & directed by him. As a tapestry of events it's the sum of it's parts as the threads of the script come apart - So more of a travesty than anything else. So it's crap - Sorry C.R.A.P. (Can't Really Assess Production) a fitting acronym. Then suddenly the light dawned and I saw it in a different light: If you watch 'The Office' or 'Extras' which I find excruciating to watch mainly because it's self-absorbed people being horribly rude & unpleasant to each other I looked at Ben Stiller's back-catalogue of films. Much of his 'humour' which can be hit and miss is along the same lines - I like 'Something About Mary' but some of his other work is dross. So if you go on percentage it will be 3 crap films to 1 good one! You really cannot fault any of the actors for their performances they really are on the top of the game here - Which just goes to show that even in a bad film the quality of the acting can be top notch but the script rubbish - Thanks Ben!

A group of self-absorbed self-obsessed actors foul up the running of their latest film and the production is threatened with closure - The Director in a fit of madness (Or genius?) sticks the cast in the middle of the jungle and let's them get on with it. Thinking they are following a script the cast get mistaken for real troops by the local bandits running a heroin operation. Cue hilarity - I think I laughed about three times - So not a great gag rate!