Tropic Thunder certainly fits that bracket. Big coveted names star in this film (Black, Stiller and Downey-Junior). A stock of comedy talent that, despite a few hiccups along the way, have at some point in their career delivered with some great laughs. Why can't they do it again?
Well they do. Sort of. A few gems. A few hiccups. It's all the same and it all cancels itself out.
Jack Black is perhaps the funniest of the three, giving a frantic performance as a heroin-addict star with the sort of tourettes comedy that can offer be startling and genius. Stiller is standardly good, even though he carries a few jokes a bit further than they can be stretched. I think its baffling that Robert Downey Jnr should get an Oscar nomination for his role, it's funny for a bit, but he goes overboard on the accent and becomes at times a bit of a blur.
I could go on about how the concept of this film is really interesting and could have been taken a lot further. And how the film treads a little to close to the line of out-and-out parody (i.e. Scary Movie et al). But I won't because there's only one more thing I need mention.
Tom Cruise. What the hell was he thinking? He gives a fantastic cameo as a hotshot Producer, and dons a bald head and the most ridiculous fake chest rug i've ever seen. They must have shaved the coat of a grizzly bear to match this up.
If anything, this movie shows Tom Cruise in a light which he's never seen in all his dark days as scientologist and Spielberg's action lovechild - I'd recommend seeing the move purely for this reason. To be honest with you, it's funny as shit. Make of that what you will.
No comments:
Post a Comment