Tropic Thunder

Went to see Tropic Thunder last night at the Showcase Cinema in Lowell, Mass. with some friends and family, and I gotta tell you, you really shouldn't see that film.

You must see that film. The plot is intricate enough, so I won't go into detail, but it's about different kinds of actors that come together to do a film based on a book about the Vietnam war. Ben Stiller leads and directs, but it was Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise that stole the show. Downey's character is a five-time Academy Award winner from Australia, named Kirk Lazarus. In a controversial move, he was handed one of the lead roles in the film being made, but, his character in that film is black. To accomodate that, he goes through a skin pigmentation process, and now, he looks like a black dude. Him and Ben Stiller's character (Tugg Speedman) have a really funny discussion about retards on film, and Kirk's lines are probably the best of the year; I don't read the script, the script reads me.

The script and the characters are really well written, Tom Cruise wears a fat-suit as Hollywood exec Les Grossman and Stiller does a great job directing and being his regular half-stupid character. Downey Jr. convinces and the jokes are well timed and outrageously funny. I haven't laughed as heartily since I saw Borat for the first time. An easy 6-of-6 stars.