"Tropic Thunder" is too boisterous to be denied. Although this movie industry satire too often goes from being explosively funny to being just plain stupid, it's so relentlessly loud that it definitely gets your attention.

The wacky premise involves the all-star cast of a Vietnam movie being shot in Southeast Asia. These self-important stars all have career and personal issues, as a therapist might put it, and are ripe for satirical treatment.

Indeed, one of the most clever touches in "Tropic Thunder" is that the movie itself is preceded by fake trailers for their other star vehicles. It's a savvy intro to the movie-within-a-movie motif.

Ben Stiller, who directed and co-wrote "Tropic Thunder," plays one of those pompous Hollywood stars. Let's start with his character's name, Tugg Speedman, which seems apt for the action movie star of a "Scorcher" series that's gradually burning out after a few sequels. Speedman hopes to revive his box office clout with a "Rambo"-evocative role in the jungle epic being filmed. Even though Stiller's muscular embodiment of Speedman rarely goes beyond the expected jokes, he does an effective job of sending up a Sylvester Stallone-type action star.

Another smart move in "Tropic Thunder" is that this spoof of all-star movies itself is densely populated with stars. Absolutely the best performance here is by Robert Downey Jr. as an Oscar-honored Australian actor, Kirk Lazarus, who is famous for getting totally into character. It should be noted that Lazarus is a black soldier, and so this white actor always stays in character with his dark makeup and street slang. This characterization is an extended riff on the now-reviled blackface tradition in American show business history, and it'll be interesting to see how audiences respond to such uneasy subject matter.

For that matter, anyone looking for reason to get riled up by the film's lack of sensitivity need look no further than its allusions to a former Stiller role as a developmentally challenged character.

"Tropic Thunder" gets some of its best comedy mileage from a confrontation between Downey's make-believe black man and a black hip-hop star on the set whose obsession with "Scarface" is reflected by his very name -- Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson).

Others on location include the obese star of self-described fattie comedies, Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black); the film's high-energy English director, Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan); and the grizzled author of the book on which this war movie is based, Four Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte).

Anxiously following the shoot from back in Hollywood is Speedman's flashy agent, Rick Peck (Matthew McConaughey).

And then there is a foul-mouthed, hyperactive studio executive, Lee Grossman, who is portrayed by Tom Cruise like you've never seen him before. Cruise is overweight, bald and downright ugly in the role, and he tackles it with disturbing glee. Armchair psychoanalysts can speculate as to what's going through Cruise's mind, but Grossman is grotesquely amusing and that's what counts.

The movie is fast and funny when it heads into the jungle, as assorted production mishaps and personality conflicts in this Speedman-starring vehicle make the troubled shooting of "Apocalypse Now" seem like a day in the park. "Tropic Thunder" takes a logic-twisting turn at this point, however, and it never fully recovers.

Things are going so poorly on the expensive movie-within-the-movie that its director decides to get rid of virtually all of the production team and take just the principal cast members deeper into the jungle, where tiny hidden cameras will record them as they enact their scenes.

Although a goofy satire such as "Tropic Thunder" is entitled to go to silly extremes, at some point it needs to be tethered to something resembling reality. It's highly unlikely that studio executives would approve such a move, just as it's highly unlikely that the resulting footage would be suitable for a blockbuster movie.

In any event, "Tropic Thunder" maintains its frantic pace when the movie stars come upon real-life dope-dealing jungle bandits, and the stars' confused brains can't quite figure out what's real and what's er, reel.

It all starts to feel desperately zany and even mildly grating. Even so, this movie-within-a-movie is more entertaining than most movies out there. Grade: B

"Tropic Thunder" (R) opens Wednesday, Aug. 13 at area theaters.

user comments (0)