Fulltime Casual - An Australian Film and TV Podcast

Steve Coogan is a first time director in Vietnam to shoot the next great war flick. His stars are Robert Downey Jr., an Australian actor of the method school who’s actually donned surgical blackface to play an African American, Ben Stiller, an action-star hack at the tail-end of his celebrity, and Jack Black, the star of cookie-cutter LCD comedies. The film is over-budget and they’ve just bungled the big pyrotechnics shot they can’t afford to do again.

At the suggestion of Nick Nolte, the autobiographer upon whose story the fictional film is based, Coogan decides to reinvigorate both his own artistic direction and that of his actors by having them airlifted far from the set and crew to method-act their way in isolation while they’re filmed guerilla style by cameras mounted in the trees. Coogan promptly absents himself, and the fictional platoon take their prop rifles into the jungle where they run into an organisation of drug-producers with real rifles.

Hilarity, theoretically, ensues.

Between Robert Downey Jr.’s apparently inevitable superstardom and loud protests against the use of perjoratives for the intellectually disabled, it’s been hard not to notice a growing buzz around Tropic Thunder. A good cast, a promising premise… I was even looking forward to it. Which is weird, because it’s directed by Ben Stiller, and I’ve seen Night at the Museum. I don’t know what it is, but even though he pretty much never makes a good film, I still keep on thinking he’s talented. His underserved goodwill has now officially dried up with me.

This film definitely has moments, but for most of its running time, it’s a terribly average family-friendly comedy in the usual Hollywood mould. It starts off fast and sells you some good gags, slows in the second act as the gags thin out and ends up in mawkish drama with some cheap redemption and a dull resolution. And just like the usual Hollywood comedy, there just aren’t enough good gags to sell the premise of the thing, so you’re left watching the plot that should be between laughs and thinking about how silly and implausible the premise is in the first place.

The possibilities for self-deprecation, irony and general cleverness inherent in movie stars making a movie about movie stars making a movie are, if not completely wasted, sorely underutilised. This is really disappointing, because all of the best bits of the film satirise the industry, and they really are hilarious when they work.

Before the credits even roll there’s a series of great fake trailers for films that the fictional actors have supposedly starred in. Like great satire, which is too rare, they’re so close to indistinguishable from the real thing that they become not just a comment on the industry but an insult to it. The same goes for the other standout moment, Downey Jr.’s bit about taking handicapped roles as Oscar-bait.

Just generally, Robert Downey Jr.’s highly stereotyped Australian actor playing a highly stereotyped black American is as funny and absurd as an actor of his formidable talents can make it, and there are occasional moments of subtlety in the comic timing where he really goes above and beyond.

But then he’s back in frame with the wasted talents of Jack Black, who ends up being a nothing character, and Ben Stiller, who’s the same character he always is – of which I’ve had enough.

There are some good cameos (especially from an unusually game Tom Cruise) and the occasional bit of war-movie parody that’s kinda fun… but overall, as much as I’d love to recommend it for its rare moments of genuine inspiration, I can’t. If you’re going to see it, wait for channel BT and watch just for the trailers and Downey Jr.