Tropic Thunder is a 2008 American action satire comedy film directed and produced by Ben Stiller and written by Stiller, Justin Theroux, and Etan Cohen. The film stars Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey, Jr. as a group of prima donna actors making a Vietnam War film when their fed-up writer and director decides to drop them in the middle of a jungle, forcing them to portray their roles without the comforts of a film set. The film was produced by DreamWorks and distributed by Paramount Pictures. Stiller had the idea for the film while playing a small part in Empire of the Sun and later brought on Theroux and Cohen to help him complete the script. After the film was greenlit in 2006, filming took place in 2007 on the Hawaiian island of Kauai over 13 weeks and was later deemed the largest film production in the island's history. Tropic Thunder had a massive marketing promotion, including posting faux websites for the characters and their fictional films, airing a fake television special, and selling the fictional energy drink advertised in the film, "Booty Sweat".
Released in the United States on August 13, 2008, it received generally good reviews with 83% of reviews positive and an average normalized score of 71%, according to the review aggregator websites Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, respectively. It earned $26 million in its North American opening weekend and retained the number one position for its first three weekends of release. The film grossed $180 million in theaters before its release on home video on November 18, 2008.
Plot
During the filming of Vietnam veteran John "Four Leaf" Tayback's (Nick Nolte) memoir Tropic Thunder, the actors—fading action hero Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), five-time Academy Award-winning Australian method actor Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey, Jr.), rapper Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson), and drug addicted comedian Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black)—behave unreasonably (with the exception of newcomer supporting actor Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel)). Production is going poorly: rookie director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) is unable to control the actors while filming a large war scene and just five days into shooting, filming is reported to be a month behind schedule. Cockburn is ordered by studio executive Les Grossman (Tom Cruise) to get the production back on track or risk having it shut down.
Acting on Tayback's advice, Cockburn drops the actors into the middle of the jungle, where he has installed many hidden cameras and special-effect explosions rigged so he can film "guerrilla-style". The actors have guns that fire blanks, along with a map and a scene listing that will guide them to the helicopter waiting at the end of the jungle route. Unbeknownst to the actors and the production, the five actors have been dropped in the middle of the Golden Triangle, the home of the heroin-producing Flaming Dragon gang. Shortly after the group is dropped off, the actors are stunned to see Cockburn blown up by a land mine. Speedman, believing Cockburn faked his death, attempts to convince the other actors that it was a hoax. The gang, believing the actors are DEA agents, ambush the actors. The actors scare away the gang and Speedman persuades Chino, Portnoy, and Sandusky that Cockburn is alive and that they are still shooting the film. Lazarus is unconvinced that Cockburn is alive, but joins the other actors in their trek through the jungle.
When Tayback and pyrotechnics operator Cody Underwood (Danny R. McBride) attempt to locate the now-dead director, they are captured by the gang, at which point Tayback is exposed as a fraud when Underwood pulls off his prosthetic hooks to reveal fully functioning arms. Meanwhile, the actors continue to forge through the hostile jungle. After Lazarus and Sandusky discover that Speedman is leading them in the wrong direction, the four actors, tired of walking through the jungle and hoping to be rescued, part ways from Speedman who leaves by himself to follow the film's scene listing.
The next day, Speedman is captured by several members of Flaming Dragon and is taken to their heroin factory. Believing it is the prisoner-of-war camp from the script, he continues to think he is being filmed. The gang discovers that he is the star of the box office bomb Simple Jack and force him to reenact it several times a day. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Speedman's agent, Rick Peck (Matthew McConaughey), is trying to negotiate with an uninterested Grossman an unfulfilled term in Speedman's contract that entitles him to a TiVo. Flaming Dragon calls the two and they demand a ransom from them, but Grossman instead curses out the gang. Despite the threats he made to the Flaming Dragon, he then tells Rick that they can benefit more by collecting the insurance claim on Speedman's death, even offering the agent a share of the profits along with his own personal Gulfstream V.
The actors stumble upon Flaming Dragon's heroin factory. After seeing Speedman being tortured, they plan an ambush based on the film's script. Lazarus impersonates a farmer bringing in a captured Jeff, distracting the armed guards so Chino and Sandusky can sneak in to where the captives are held. After the gang notices inconsistencies in Lazarus' story, the actors open fire on the gang, temporarily subduing them. When the gang realizes that the suspected DEA agents are only actors using guns filled with blanks, they begin firing on the actors.
Chino, Portnoy, Sandusky, and Lazarus locate Speedman and attempt an escape in Underwood and Tayback's recaptured helicopter. After rejoining with Tayback and crossing a bridge that Underwood has previously rigged to detonate, they meet up with Underwood at the helicopter. Speedman asks to remain behind with the gang which he considers his "family", but he quickly returns with the murderous gang in hot pursuit. Tayback detonates the bridge just in time for Speedman to reach safety, but as the helicopter takes off, the gang fires an RPG at their helicopter. Rick unexpectedly stumbles out of the jungle carrying a TiVo box and throws it in the path of the RPG, saving them all. Footage from the hidden cameras is compiled into a feature film, Tropic Blunder, which ends up becoming a major critical and box office hit and a multiple-Academy Award winner.
Cast
- Ben Stiller as Tugg Speedman: Compared to a young Sylvester Stallone,[3] he is the highest-paid, highest-grossing action star ever due to his Scorcher franchise. He now has a current reputation of appearing in nothing but box office bombs, and after a failed attempt at portraying a serious role in Simple Jack, he joins the cast of Tropic Thunder in an attempt to save his career, taking on the role of Four Leaf Tayback.
- Robert Downey, Jr. as Kirk Lazarus: An Australian multiple Academy Award-winning method actor, Lazarus had a controversial "pigment-changing" surgery to darken his skin for his portrayal of the African American character Sergeant Lincoln Osiris. Lazarus refuses to break character under any circumstances while filming and during the majority of the shoot and only speaks in his character's Black English, much to the annoyance of co-star and genuine African-American, Alpa Chino. Lazarus's Satan's Alley faux trailer about two gay priests at an 18th century Irish monastery parodies films like Brokeback Mountain and Downey's own scenes with Tobey Maguire in Wonder Boys.[4][5]
- Jack Black as Jeff Portnoy: Compared to Chris Farley,[3] he is a drug-addicted comedian-actor well known for playing multiple parts and the frequent use of flatulence in films. In the film-within-a-film, he plays a raspy-voiced soldier named Fats. Portnoy's The Fatties: Fart 2 faux trailer, about a family (with each member played by Portnoy) which enjoys passing gas, spoofs Eddie Murphy's portrayal of multiple characters in films such as Nutty Professor II: The Klumps.[6][7][8]
- Jay Baruchel as Kevin Sandusky: A young, unknown actor who is the only one of the cast who has read the script and book and attended a boot camp before the film, to play a young soldier named Brooklyn. He serves as the straight man, being the only actor without an internal conflict or insecurity.
- Brandon T. Jackson as Alpa Chino: A rapper who is attempting to cross over into acting, portraying a soldier named Motown, while promoting his "Bust-A-Nut" candy bar and energy drink, "Booty Sweat". He accidentally reveals himself to be gay during a conversation with the other actors revealing he is dating Lance Bass. His name is a play off of Al Pacino.[9][10]
- Nick Nolte as John "Four Leaf" Taylor: The author of Tropic Thunder, a memoir of his war experiences on which the film-within-a-film is based, who hatches the idea to drop the actors in the middle of the jungle. When he is captured by the Flaming Dragon gang, it is revealed he lied about being a war veteran and losing his hands. Tayback claims he wrote the memoir as a tribute to the soldiers who served in the war.
- Tom Cruise as Les Grossman: The foul-mouthed and hot-headed studio executive behind Tropic Thunder.
- Danny McBride as Cody Underwood: The film's choleric explosives expert. He assists Tayback and Cockburn in dropping the actors into the jungle. He idolizes Tayback and is disillusioned and enraged when he discovers Tayback lied about his military service.
- Matthew McConaughey as Rick "Pecker" Peck: Tugg Speedman's extremely devoted agent and best friend.
- Steve Coogan as Damien Cockburn: The inexperienced British film director who is unable to control the actors in the film. After dropping them in the jungle to finish the film, he is killed when he steps on a land mine.
- Bill Hader as Rob Slolom: Assistant and right-hand man to Les Grossman.
- Brandon Soo Hoo as Tran: The young leader of the Flaming Dragon gang. He was compared to Karen National Union guerrilla leaders Johnny and Luther Htoo.[11]
- Reggie Lee as Byong: The second-in-command of the Flaming Dragon gang.
- Trieu Tran as Tru: Another Flaming Dragon member who dresses in drag for the re-enactment of "Simple Jack" and remains such for the rest of his screen-time.
Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_Thunder
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