Movies

About This Movie: Tropic Thunder

By Leroy Douresseaux
August 12, 2008 - 12:41

DreamWorks Pictures Presents
A Red Hour Production
Tropic Thunder (2008)
DIRECTOR: Ben Stiller
WRITERS:  Ben Stiller & Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen; from a story by Stiller & Theroux
PRODUCERS:  Ben Stiller, Stuart Cornfeld, and Eric McLeod
CINEMATOGRAPHER: John Toll, ASC (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Greg Hayden
PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Jeff Mann
COSTUME DESIGNER: Marlene Stewart
COMPOSER: Theodore Shapiro

Starring:  Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey, Jr., Steve Coogan, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, Brandon T. Jackson, Bill Hader, and Nick Nolte

Opening date: Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Running time: 107 minutes
Rating:  MPAA – R for pervasive language including sexual references, violent content and drug material

The new comedy Tropic Thunder, from director Ben Stiller (Reality Bites, Zoolander) follows a group of self-absorbed actors who set out to make the most expensive war film ever and who unwittingly wind up in a real battle.

Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), the pampered action star, has seen his series of post-apocalyptic action epics, Scorcher, fade.  After his desperate attempt to get an Oscar nomination fails, he hopes an epic war movie, entitled “Tropic Thunder,” will put him back on top.

Tropic Thunder's self-important cast and its determined director.

Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), the star of the popular gross-out comedy franchise called, “The Fatties,” is looking to branch out as an actor and hopes to show the world that there’s more to him than just getting laughs for passing gas.

Aussie thespian Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey, Jr.) is the quintessential method actor and has won five Oscars.  He’s looking for new challenges and ways to transform for his “art.”

Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson) has it all as a multi-platinum hip-hop-star-turned-entrepreneur, but he is eager to move on up to the ranks of serious actors.

Newcomer Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel) is just happy to have a job.

After ballooning costs and the out of control egos of the pampered cast force the studio to cancel the movie, the frustrated British director, Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan), refuses to stop shooting.  Cockburn leads his unsuspecting cast deep into the jungles of Southeast Asia to complete principal photography “guerilla style” for “increased realism.”

With no assistants, entourages, or cell phones, the cast soon encounters the real bad guys, a very real and very dangerous band of drug lords.  Mistaking the actors for American DEA agents, they resolve to capture the “American invaders.”

Visit the Tropic Thunder film site.

 

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12