My Lovely Wife and I were watching the very nice Blu-ray of this tonight, and suddenly an apocryphal rock story came to mind. That being: one night in some anonymous dressing room in the ’70s one Peter Grant spies one Bob Dylan, and approaches him. Mr. Grant introduces himself to Mr. Dylan thusly: “My name is Peter Grant. I manage Led Zeppelin.” Without dropping a beat, Mr. Dylan replies, “I don’t come to you with my problems.”
Tropic Thunder works very hard to convey that Hollywood is filled with posers and pricks. First of all, no shit. Secondly, what does the film expect US to do about it?
“Secondly, what does the film expect US to do about it?”
Nothing, except laugh and jeer.
It didn’t even do a good job of that.
I would’ve accepted those no-shit messages about Hollywood if the film hadn’t doubled as exactly the kind of movie it should have been making fun of: a big, bloated, bland action epic. If the ratio of laughs to explosions didn’t tip so decisively in favor of the latter, I’d be satisfied. Alas, we got stuck with another damn action-comedy. This year has not been a good one for film comedies. Thank god for 30 Rock, is all I have to say.
I guess the “no shit” factor works in the film’s favour, at least commercially: the shared understanding that most movie stars are assholes is the premise we can all agree on, so audiences turn up hoping to see that played out in an amusing way. Like “cats chase mice” is the “no shit” premise of Tom & Jerry cartoons.
I laughed quite a bit at Tropic Thunder. Not sure I ever want to see it again, but it was enjoyable once.
As to the “what to do about it” thing, maybe most big-budget comedies, and most comedies generally, aren’t really intended as a call to action. Beyond inviting us to laugh at that which is ridiculous.
The problem for me was maybe some indecision as to whether the characters are supposed to have changed, improved, or whether they’re still the same assholes. The latter option, if embraced wholeheartedly, would be funnier and more true, but might invalidate the movie experience on a certain level, at least for some.
Perhaps it expects us to admire it for disdaining the very milieu it name-drops and celebrates? I have to admit I haven’t seen this one yet. However, I’m skeptical of any film which expects us to laugh WITH Tom Cruise…
I couldn’t help thinking the movie would have been funnier and more satisfying if it had been at least a bit more modest in scale. The idea of a superproduction making fun of superproductions just doesn’t work very well. It needed better jokes, not more scope and production value.
With that last sentence, you’ve also explained what’s gone wrong with the comics industry these past ten years.
How do you make fun of superproductions without being a superproduction, though? I’ve seen it attempted before, but the chintzy evocation of Hollywood bloat always gets in the way of the joke and starts to look more like sour grapes than like satire.
Superbly written. No wonder one Coen brother is part of this. And I’m sure Justin Theroux learned a thing or two from Lynch. The shuffling between the nested realities is impeccable.
Hugo, hate to break it to you, but “Etan Cohen,” the co-writer of “Tropic Thunder,” and “Ethan Coen,” of the Coen Brothers, are two entirely different people.
So they say.…