![]() Pauline Kael once noted that ‘unlike satire, spoofing has no serious objectives it doesn't attack anything that anyone could take seriously it has no cleansing power.’, " and goes on to compare the film to Dr. After all, writing at, Eric Kohn avers, “everything in Tropic Thunder qualifies as satire, not spoof. Or me and Todd McCarthy, whose Variety pan prompted the ire of those who insist that McCarthy just doesn't, you know, "get" it. Nonetheless, there is an aspect of Cruise’s performance here that says, “I’m going to show you a far bigger freak than the guy who jumped on Oprah’s couch.” All the brouhaha over Downey’s putative blackface schtick (not to mention the “concern” evinced by certain representatives of the disabled, who, truth to tell, are missing a certain point but will nonetheless be vilified by Thunder's admirers for the far less nuanced reason that they’re just not hip enough to get the movie’s awesomeness-indeed, pretty much as I write this one Hollywood observer is sniffily referring to an anti-Thunder editorial by an activist for the disabled as “not-very-hip”) has helped cover the fact that Cruise’s Grossman, with his simian posture, scraggly beard, unsightly tufts of chest hair, pouchlike paunch, and overall vileness, is a fairly vicious anti-semitic caricature. ![]() But Grossman is hardly an analog for Redstone, whose vulgarity is far more, shall we say, homespun than the Tropic Thunder’s character, for one thing. The fifth of the stranded-in-the-jungle cast members, Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel), is apparently the sole member of the troupe who has some common sense, at least when he’s not delivering ridiculous diatribes on why Blu-ray won the HD-disc format war.įor all Grossman's awfulness, it's manifestly clear that he's the real deal, which tells you all you need to know about the film's philosophy. Many have described Cruise’s turn as a form of revenge against Viacom head Sumner Redstone, who publicly criticized Cruise’s “bizarre” behavior in 2006. Which deeply pisses of rapper-turned-acting hopeful Alp Chino (Brandon T. is Kirk Lazarus, five-time-Oscar-winning Australian performing genius, a man who gets so deeply into his roles that for this one he’s gotten a pigmentation change and playing his part as an African-American. Jack Black is Jeff Portnoy, who made his fortune playing multiple characters in fart-joke pictures, and is looking for some legitimacy. I was reminded of Robert Christgau’s critique of Manifest Destiny, an album by punk-metal band The Dictators: “anyone smart enough to fool around with such terminology ought to be decent enough not to.”) Director/co-writer Ben Stiller plays Tugg Speedman, an action star whose most recent stab at thespic and Oscar-baiting credibility, going “full retard” in a picture called Simple Jack, was a disastrous backfire. ![]() (The leader of the cartel is a cigar-chomping twelve year old played by Brandon Soo Hoo the character is obviously inspired by the real-life boy soldiers of Myanmar. This bunch-three major stars, each representing a particular strain of Hollywood product, and two relative newcomers-are trying to get as “real” as they can while shooting a Vietnam-era war epic, and via various twists of fate and hubris wind up waging a form of actual warfare against a very real and very armed Asian drug cartel. First, because it’s exactly the kind of fatuous twaddle one might expect to be spewed by any of its main characters, all of whom are Hollywood actors. ![]() Cruise’s noxious pronouncement came to mind while I was watching the new comedy Tropic Thunder for two reasons.
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