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Features: Widescreen, Unrated, Director's Cut
Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. lead an ensemble cast in Tropic Thunder, an action comedy about a group of self-absorbed actors who set out to make the most expensive war film. After ballooning costs force the studio to cancel the movie, the frustrated director refuses to stop shooting, leading his cast into the jungles of Southeast Asia, where they enoucter real bad guys.
"...a rude, crude, over-the-top satire about rude, crude, over-the-top action movies...[that is] ambitious and surprisingly effective..." Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post
"Seldom does an ensemble comedy not contain a single weak character or performance as does this one." Kirk Honeycutt, The Hollywood Reporter
"It's raunchy, outspoken -- and also a smart and agile dissection of art, fame, and the chutzpah of big-budget productions." Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
"The movie is laugh-until-your-stomach-hurts hilarious." Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle
"A knockout of a comedy that keeps you laughing constantly. It's also killer smart, lacing combustible action with explosive gags." Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
Editor's Note
When the box office champ Ben Stiller's comedic performances aren't a variation on a soft-spoken, put-upon everyman with an eventual fuse, he's usually playing a full-blown absurdist monster with an apoplectic Napoleon complex. These bizarre creations usually adorn films in which the funnyman provides the supporting work (DODGEBALL, HEAVYWEIGHTS), but, whenever he's directing, he's free to build an entire filmic universe around his asinine, ludicrously funny, culture-skewering characters and premises. His ZOOLANDER (2001) bit at the entertainment industry with silly abandon, but Stiller has firmly set TROPIC THUNDER within the realm of sophisticated Hollywood satire. In it, a desperate director named Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) trying to make a Vietnam war movie drops his pampered actors into the heart of the jungle. Cockburn's stars include Stiller as an action hero who's starting to make bad career choices, Jack Black as an insecure low-brow comedy star going through heroin withdrawals, and Robert Downey Jr. as an Australian Oscar winner so lost in his "craft" he underwent a procedure to become black for his role. In the jungle, they remain under the delusion that they are still being filmed even after they encounter a dangerous gang of druglords. The film's basic premise has popped up several times since Hollywood's 1970s golden age in films such as THREE AMIGOS! and GALAXY QUEST. Where those films simply blanketed a classic Overconfident Bumbling Idiot comedy showcase with a pop culture lexicon, however, TROPIC THUNDER could have only been made, as on-the-nose at is, by people who have been working in the Hollywood system for years, making cutting observations along the way. Simply put, this raucous satire knows big-budget filmmaking, the delusional narcissism of actors, and even the good points of those actors--perhaps why they're celebrated--like the back of its hand.
| Features | Rain Of Madness Trailer | | Audio Commentary With Ben Stiller, Jack Black, & Robert Downey Jr. | | Audio: English Dolby Digital TrueHD 5.1 Surround Sound | | Audio: French, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound | | DreamWorks Public Service Announcement | | Dubbed: French, Spanish | | Featurettes: Blowing S*** Up, The Cast Of Tropic Thunder - Baruchel, The Cast Of Tropic Thunder - Black, The Cast Of Tropic Thunder - Downey Jr., The Cast Of Tropic Thunder - Jackson, The Cast Of Tropic Thunder - McBride, The Cast Of Tropic Thunder - Nolte, The Hot LZ, Make-Up Test With Tom Cruise With Optional Intro By Ben Stiller & Editor Greg Hayden, Full Mags With Optional Intro By Ben Stiller & Greg Hayden, & MTV Movie Awards - Tropic Thunder | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese | | This Is A Blu-Ray DVD Made For Blue-Laser Format Players Which Produce Higher Quality Picture & Sound |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Paramount |
| Release Date: 10/13/2009 |
| Running Time: 107 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2008 | | Catalog ID: 139444 | | UPC: 00097361394442 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English, French Dubbed, Spanish Dubbed | | Available Subtitles: English, French, Portuguese, Spanish | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen 2.35:1 |
| Cast & Crew
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| | Professional Reviews | Rolling Stone
3.5 stars out of 4 -- "You get it all in TROPIC THUNDER, a knock-out of a comedy that keeps you laughing constantly. It's also killer smart, lacing combustible action with explosive gags." 08/21/2008 p.91USA Today
3 stars out of 4 -- "Cruise's paunchy studio exec is easily the funniest role of his fairly straight-faced career....Cruise's bald-pated, hairy-knuckled movie mogul is outrageously amusing." 08/14/2008 Los Angeles Times
"Stiller has a gift for take-no-prisoners sketch humor that goes all the way back to his short-lived, Emmy-winning TV series 'The Ben Stiller Show.'" 08/13/2008 Premiere
"[Stiller] breaks down as a remarkably talented and wholly consistent filmmaker in films like TROPIC THUNDER....[The film] recalls the comic dread of DR. STRANGELOVE..." 08/07/2008 Empire
3 stars out of 5 -- "Cruise cuts loose MAGNOLIA-style....He should consider making more forays into all-out comedy....Downey, Jr., meanwhile, is just superb..." 10/01/2008 p.48 Sight and Sound
"TROPIC THUNDER is at once packed with gossipy detail and teasing references to real-life celebrities but broad enough in its knockabout to count as a regular funny movie with redemption at the end." 11/01/2008 p.75 Entertainment Weekly
Included in Entertainment Weekly's 2008 Films Of The Year -- "The director/co-writer/star's knowing, balls-out send-up of ripe action-moviemaking emphasizes the absurdities of Hollywood privilege." 12/26/2008 Hollywood Reporter
"TROPIC THUNDER sends up all things Hollywood, from pampered actors and outrageous media tycoons to war movies in general....All actors get their share of the comic spotlight." 07/26/2008 ReelViews 8 of 10
Just when it was starting to look like the concept of a "funny comedy" has gone out of vogue, along comes Pineapple Express and its cinematic cousin, Tropic Thunder. The latter film, which has emerged from the warped mind of Ben Stiller, is a little nastier than the former, but no less hilarious. With a cast that many movies would die for, Tropic Thunder takes no prisoners. It treks into taboo areas and emerges mostly unscathed. The film isn't perfect - it's a little too long and some scenes aren't as funny as the filmmakers think they are - but in an environment where things like The Love Guru and Step Brothers pass for worthwhile entertainment, Tropic Thunder puts a lot of comedy pretenders to shame...Tropic Thunder opens brilliantly, with a fake soda commercial and a few real-seeming trailers that will have half the audience unsure whether the movie has begun. The actual movie isn't on par with this prologue material, but it doesn't have to be. It's good enough to get laughs and the flaws aren't bigger than the stuff that works. Stiller shows no fear and throws in copious pop culture references that range from Star Trek (a clip from the episode "Arena") to Close Encounters (a mound of heroin that looks like Devil's Tower) to 'N Sync. Tropic Thunder understands movies, understands the system in which they are created and, most of all, knows what it takes to make an audience roar with laughter. - James Berardinelli
Chicago Sun-Times 9 of 10
The documentary "Hearts of Darkness" is about the struggles of filming the great Vietnam war movie "Apocalypse Now." Ben Stiller's "Tropic Thunder" plays like that doc's nightmare. A troupe of actors, under the impression they're making a Vietnam war movie, wanders dangerously in the jungle and is captured by a gang of druglords who think the actors are narcs...The movie is a send-up of Hollywood, actors, acting, agents, directors, writers, rappers, trailers and egos, much enhanced by several cameo roles, the best of which I will not even mention. You'll know the one, although you may have to wait for the credits to figure it out...All but stealing the show, Robert Downey Jr. is not merely funny but also very good and sometimes even subtle as Kirk Lazarus, an Australian actor who has won five Oscars and has surgically dyed his skin to transform himself into a black man. So committed is he to this role that he remains in character at all times, seemingly convinced that he is actually black...The movie is, may I say, considerably better than Stiller's previous film, "Zoolander" (2001). It's the kind of summer comedy that rolls in, makes a lot of people laugh and rolls on to video. It's been a good summer for that; look at "Pineapple Express." When it's all over, you'll probably have the fondest memories of Robert Downey Jr.'s work. It's been a good year for him, this one coming after "Iron Man." He's back, big time. - Roger Ebert
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