Tropic Blunder

TROPIC THUNDER was the most buzzed-about comedy of the summer. So I was very much looking forward to seeing it.

Once again, we have another sloppily-plotted comedy. Fortunately, it’s funny, so the humor carries the weak plot. But with a little more attention to the characters and the plot, the script and film could have been much stronger.

SPOILERS

We’re introduced to a cast of mostly bratty actors and a rapper. Because they’re all more or less self-absorbed jerks, it’s hard to find anyone to root for. Script gives us Jay Baruchel’s rookie actor, but he’s barely defined so we don’t particularly care about him. Making him more of a focal point would help the audience care about what happens to these guys; otherwise, we’re waiting to see what befalls an insanely dedicated method actor; a clueless action star; a junkie; and a closeted rapper.

The movie also never makes us feel like any of the characters are in danger. One major mistake is the way in which Steve Coogan’s director character is killed. He steps on a landmine and explodes, which is a funny beat. But it doesn’t serve the story. It would have been easy to have the Laotian drug dealers stealthily shoot him with an RPG. This accomplishes the same exploding gag and still allows Ben Stiller’s Tug to idiotically assume Coogan’s playing a joke on him to enhance the realism of the shoot; it also sets up that the drug dealers are a threat. I would’ve also had one or two more disposable good guys who could get shot and killed in the course of the action to up the stakes. When we’re watching the climactic rescue and there are 100+ armed drug farmers facing off against five actors with blanks and nobody’s dying, it’s a little ridiculous.

The big rescue also falls flat in terms of motivation and believability. There’s no reason for any of the characters to risk their necks to save Tug; most of them are wholly selfish and all of them are grossly unsuited to the task. A better and more plausible way to achieve the rescue would be to give Jay Baruchel’s character a big, rousing speech about how they have to go help their brother actor. All of the other characters ignore him. Jack Black, in the throes of heroin addiction, begins a solo raid on the bad guy camp to score drugs. Everyone else thinks he’s being heroic. Then Robert Downey, Jr., still locked in his Black sergeant character, goes in after Black. And everyone else follows suit. By the time they realize Black was just looking to get high, it’s too late and they’re already committed.

A final note is that the tone of the film veers around a lot, from satire (with Tom Cruise’s studio chief and the fake trailers that open the film) to buddy comedy to near-action at the end. If the movie picked one of these, it could have been stronger. But since it made a fortune anyway, I doubt anyone really cares.