|
TROPIC THUNDER |
|
Like
Apocalypse Now, only with more farting |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Released :
September 19
Certificate :
15
Director :
Ben Stiller
Cast :
Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr, Jack
Black, Brandon T.Jackson, Jay Baruchel,
Steve Coogan, Tom Cruise
Screenwriters :
Ben Stiller, Justin Theroux, Etan Cohen
Running Time :
107 mins.
Plot :
A bunch of movie stars shooting a
Vietnam war movie are dropped off in a
real-life jungle to offset the
escalating budget. It's not long before
guerrilla filmmaking turns into genuine
guerrilla warfare... |
|
| |
|
|
|
comedy was the cheap and cheerful genre.
Sure, when the Murphys and Carreys hit
the mega-big-time, they'd eat up a
majority of the budget ($5,000 per gurn
or fart), but that aside, all you needed
was a rib-cracking script and a
well-stocked prop room: custard pies,
water spritzers, fake jism, puppet
gophers...These days, however, comedy's
become an expensive business. Last year
we had the FX-stuffed flop Evan
Almighty, in which looks like it's
incinerated half a jungle to bring you
its laughs. And in terms of looks. at
least, it's money well spent. |
|
| |
|
In his effort to properly pastiche the
action / war genre, director Ben Stiller
has hired esteemed lensman John Toll, a
man whose style of cinematography is
best exemplified by the rippling visual
poetry of Terrence Malick's The Thin Red
Line. A gag about a mistimed pyrotechnic
climax (inspired, surely, by the
legendary tale of Sergio Leone's
bridge-blowing cock-up while shooting
The Good The Bad And The Ugly) results
in a chain-explosion that tops
Apocalypse now's symphony in napalm; a
pisstake of the clichéd 'control-room'
cutaway is harshly uplit and
cobalt-tinged to perfectly mimic Tony
Scott or Michael Bay's slickest
melodramatics. This has to be one of the
best-shot comedies ever made, and is
visually leagues ahead of anything
stiller has ever done before. But when
it comes to the characters and -
crucially - the gags themselves, Stiller
squats on very familiar territory. |
|
| |
|
A neat trio of fake trailers introduces
the three main players: action meathead
Tugg Speedman (Stiller), rotund
funny-guy Jeff 'Fats' Portnoy (Jack
Black),a and Australian Oscar-magnet
Kirk Lazarus (Downey Jr.), who gets the
first big laugh with his teaser for
Satan's Alley, a period tale of
forbidden love between medieval monks in
which Lazarus and Tobey Maguire
("Co-winner of the MTV Best Kiss Award
2002") exchange lustful glances and
hungry lip-twitches as they fondle each
other's rosaries to the cheesy
Gregorian-breakbeat of '90s dance
pompsters Enigma. These trailers are a
good indication of what's to follow in
the main feature: Downey Jr.'s Lazarus
doesn't just get the first big laugh; he
gets the only big laughs. |
|
| |
|
Black's Portnoy is a waste of
script-pages. Aside from a graphic
monologue about what specific acts of
fellatory degradation he'll perform for
a "drug" fix (it's never quite made
clear what precisely is his white powder
of choice - or rather, compulsion),
Black has little to do other than act
strung-out, pass wind and do his
red-faced, bug-eyed schtick, while
loosely sending up the late Chris Farley
(a reference that won't mean much to the
majority of British viewer). It's also
hard to see precisely how Fats fits in;
if there's a good joke in the process by
which a Farley-esque comedian is cast in
a supposedly serious war movie, it's not
told here. |
|
|
|
|
For Further
Information, please buy a copy of Empire @ myNEWS.com
|
|
|
|
