Just as Apocalypse Now mimicked the chaos and waste and
wrongheadedness of the Vietnam War in a way that charmed America by
making it feel that it was being searching and introspective about
itself in a way that could still redound to its greatness, Tropic
Thunder mimicks the waste and extravagance of the Vietnam war movie
genre in a way that's supposed to make us laugh and appreciate how
much better we are to recognize the tragic destructive waste of energy
in a product catering only to fools. The problem with both Apocalypse
Now and Tropic Thunder is that they each get sucked into their own
conceit, the former at the expense of dramatic meaning, the latter at
the expense of satiric meaning. Apocalypse Now becomes a war and a
waste. Tropic Thunder becomes a film catering to fools. Much as I
liked Robert Downey Jr. and even Ben Stiller as fun to watch, (Tom
Cruise was not particularly fun to watch. Pathetic how you can dress
him up but he still can't act any other way than his high octane Tom
Cruise persona), the film was like a forced 2 hour laugh track with
explosions. Funny to me about 5% of the time. Which may be a
measure of how far out of the grip of mainstream film concerns I have
drifted. I still get the in-jokes (most of them I think anyway) but
the pleasures of recognition are hollow and depressing.
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