TROPIC THUNDER: I hate the smell of self indulgence in the morning - or, indeed, at any time of day

I must be a sucker for punishment.

I went to see TROPIC THUNDER on its cinematic release in the summer of 2008. It was a birthday treat and I hated it - the film not the treat that is, although it did turn the treat into something of an ordeal.

I couldn’t believe that something so heavily hyped as the comedy event of the season and so laden with comedic talent could be so bereft of laughs.

It left me with a nagging feeling that maybe I missed something so I’ve just watched the film again on DVD.

I hadn’t missed a thing.

This second viewing was no more enjoyable than the first. All it did was confirm my initial impression although, on the plus side, I now have a much clearer understanding of why it doesn’t work.

The film is based on the mistaken premise that us ordinary folk find the inner workings of Hollywood as fascinating and relatable as those who actually work in the film business.

TROPIC THUNDER is a movie about the making of a film called TROPIC THUNDER – a big budget Vietnam War action epic with eerie similarities to “Apocalypse Now” - being shot on location in south-east Asia and beset by problems.

The clashing egos of the three stars have put the production a month behind schedule after just five days of shooting and studio head Les Grossman (Tom Cruise) is threatening to murder the first-time director (Steve Coogan) if he doesn’t regain control.

A bizarre series of events finds the cast abandoned alone in the jungle, believing they’re shooting the film guerrilla-style and unable to differentiate make-believe from reality when they’re targeted by a ruthless, real-life gang of heroin traffickers.

TROPIC THUNDER is the multi-million dollar equivalent of you or I making a movie about our workplace and filling it with the characters, egos and sometimes bizarre behaviours which make us laugh or cringe and provide us with the material for jokes and stories to share with our co-workers.

But you’ve got to be there to find it funny.

Chances are that if you’re not then my stories about the weird personal habits of one of my office colleagues are likely to leave you cold.

Granted that a satire on the machinations of Tinseltown will have broader appeal than one set in my office but really, how many of us know enough agents or studio moguls to find the inside jokes funny?

Spoofing the actors is a more promising proposition and in Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), Jeff

Portnoy (Jack Black) and Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey jr) we get three fictitious film stars very clearly modelled on real-life headline grabbing stars.

Speedman is a Stallone-like action hero whose Rambo-style “Scorcher” franchise has run to six, increasingly repetitive instalments. Portnoy is a combination of the worst of Eddie Murphy and Chris Farley, while five-time Oscar winner Lazarus – “the greatest actor of his generation” – could easily be mistaken for Russell Crowe.

With everything we know about Murphy, Stallone and Crowe from their films and the gossip columns there should be plenty of material for some very pointed and funny satire.  

Unfortunately writer-producer-director and star Ben Stiller has opted to rely on the cast’s ability to improvise rather than use this source material to provide them with a strong script. And as is painfully clear from one of the accompanying DVD featurettes encouraging the cast to make it up as they go along just ain’t funny.

The bulk of the laughs come in the film’s first seven minutes. The subsequent one hour and forty minutes generate a meagre six or seven chuckles and an awful lot of silence, broken only by the sound of audible cringing at Tom Cruise’s excruciatingly unamusing and disturbing cameo.

The sum of the parts of TROPIC THUNDER add up to considerably less than its whole and I predict that a year from now few will even remember this self-indulgent bore.

GREENBERG: Stiller's straight turn is a turn off

GREENBERG is not a film that sells itself. The title tells us nothing except that a guy called Greenberg is probably involved in the story somewhere, and maybe he's Jewish. 
It's a fair bet that Greenberg is a guy because if he were a she she'd have a first name too. Think "Erin Brockovitch" or "The Diary of Anne Frank." It's only polite to give a lady her full name.
In the absence of an enticing title GREENBERG has to rely on word of mouth to pull in paying customers. And in this kind of situation it really does help if those who've seen it feel able to utter good words from their mouth to encourage others to do the same.
I'm not one of those early adoptors. 
Having just sat through this enormously disappointing film I'm afraid that only bad words will spill from my lips. To put it another way - I'm going to badmouth GREENBERG.
Watching comedians stretch themselves artistically can be a tedious experience. For every Peter Sellers in "Being There" there's a dozen Adam Sandler's in "Punch Drunk Love" or Jim Carrey's in "The Majestic." To that latter list can now be added Ben Stiller as Roger Greenberg.
Roger's a 40 year old adolescent, selfish, self-centred and oblivious to anyone and anything that doesn't help him get what he wants, even when he doesn't know what it is that he wants - which is most of the time.

Fresh out of a stay in a mental hospital he relocates to Los Angeles to house sit for his vacationing brother, which fits perfectly with his plan to do nothing for a while. But doing nothing doesn't preclude him from messing with the head of Florence (Greta Gerwig), his brother's 25 year old personal assistant. Florence, who clearly has issues connected to self worth, finds herself falling for Roger and allows him to play her like a fish,  reeling her in then throwing her back only to reel her in again.
And when he's not screwing with Florence's emotions he's hamfistedly trying to reconnect not only with the fellow members of a band he singlehandedly wrecked years earlier (including an incredibly restrained Rhys Ifans as Ivan, a Welshman inexplicably living in LA), but also with a woman (Jennifer Jason Leigh giving it plenty of "look at me, I'm acting") he dated briefly 15 years ago and who can't remember anything about their time together.
GREENBERG is Stiller's most subdued performance ever. He drifts through the story giving away very little in terms of emotion or consideration for others. But where Peter Sellers portrayal of Chance, in "Being There," as a blank canvas onto which others projected their desires is intriguing and appealing, there's nothing likeable about GREENBERG's demeanor which gives us precious little reason to continue watching.
I stuck with it because I kept hoping something would happen to give GREENBERG his comeuppance but it never does. The story never sparks into life and Stiller's playing it straight just becomes tiresome.
I was hoping for much more from director Noah Baumbach after "The Squid and the Whale" (now there's an intriguing title) which I enjoyed so much. GREENBERG is neither fish nor fowl. It's not a comedy nor a drama or even a character study. For the last descriptor to apply there'd have to be a character to study and Stiller's effort to go straight and serious doesn't do it.