Meanwhile, the third powerhouse in Tropic Thunder is Jack Black, playing Jeff Portnoy, a physical comedian best known for his mastery of farts, which is the gimmick that makes his movie series, "The Fatties," such a success. The Fatties is a show in which Jeff Portnoy plays all of the parts of an obese, fart-happy family, and is obviously a parody of Eddie Murphy's Nutty Professor movies.
Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel) and Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson) round out members of the hilarious cast as an inexperienced young actor and an audacious hip hop star, respectively.
Tropic Thunder is a farcical story of how a movie is made of a true life hero in Vietnam, Four Leaf Tayback (played by Nick Nolte), who, as it turns out, wasn't a hero to begin with. Whereas the movie was about the making of a movie, there is a featurette that is a mocumentary of the making of the (internal) movie, that approaches the subject in a documentary fashion. Four Leaf suggests to the harried director that the best way to whip this cast of prima donna actors into shape is to immerse them into the realism of war by dropping them into the jungles and just shooting footage, guerrilla style. Things go haywire, and the group takes a while to realize they are truly stranded in the jungle and in danger. Throw in a heroin cartel run by a pre-teen dictator who loves Tugg Speedman's worst movie, and you've got a recipe for a really funny disaster.
As I watched Tropic Thunder: Director's Cut, I really got the feeling that a lot of the dialogue was improvisation, mainly because it worked so well. You can't really sit down and simply write good comedy, because it never plays the way it sounds in your head. Ben Stiller's method of framing the comedic situation and then just running a lot of varieties does a good job of producing great takes, which add up to a very funny movie. Matthew McConaughey as Speedman's agent and Danny McBride as the pyrotechnics specialist also turn in really good performances and are quite funny in their own right.
One of my favorite featurettes is a video from the MTV Movie Awards, which shows Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr. and Jack Black trying to appeal to the MTV audience (also another Blu-ray exclusive). They do this by having Robert Downey, Jr. don an Iron Man mask, having Jack Black put on a huge Kung-Fu Panda mask and then having "Iron Man" kick "Kung-Fu Panda" in the crotch repeatedly. Good stuff.
If you're a fan of Ben Stiller, Jack Black or Robert Downey, Jr., Tropic Thunder is a must see. Even if you're not, it's a fun movie that doesn't take itself seriously. In the least. At all. Really. ...And, the dance scene with Tom Cruise as the producer, Les Grossman, alone, is worth the price of admission. If you have a Blu-ray setup, there are a number of special features that are Blu-ray exclusive and the explosions and whiz of bullets really shines in high-def. If you are a big fan of the actors, the special features might just be reason enough to go Blu-ray.
