Without knowing anything more than just the plot I was prepared to expect Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder to tank. I don’t think the guy is funny whatsoever and I thought his 2004 onslaught of shitty films may have severely killed his career (Heartbreak Kid serves as a perfect example). I didn’t see this film as anything special enough to change things, at least, as I said, based on the plotline.
However, there is a major change in the winds a comin’. The film is about the filming of the biggest, most expensive war movie ever produced and soon after the production begins the actors are thrown into a real-life situation and are forced to become the fighting unit they’re portraying, in order to find a way out of the jungle in one piece.
That is the unfunny part of the whole thing, but the part that has me shaking my head involves Robert Downey Jr. who stars as Kirk Lazarus. Apparently the role Lazarus plays in the war film being made is Sgt. Osiris, who was originally written as black. So Lazarus decides to dye his skin. This opens up serious potential for some serious comedy and Downey is quoted in Entertainment Weekly saying, “If it’s done right, it could be the type of role you called Peter Sellers to do 35 years ago… If you don’t do it right, we’re going to hell.”
Stiller points out that they set out to make a movie skewering insufferable actors, not African-Americans, but he didn’t know what to expect until they finally screened it for a black audience. ”It seems people really embrace it,” he told EW.
The trailer is set to debut on March 17 and apparently Downey is all over it, and believe it or not, that’s him between Jack Black and Ben Stiller in the new picture debuted by EW and featured below. For the complete article click here.
Tropic Thunder stars Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., Jay Baruchel, Jack Black, Nick Nolte, Steve Coogan, Bill Hader, Matthew McConaughey and has a cameo from Tom Cruise. Stiller directed the pic and it hits theaters on August 15, 2008.
