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.

IRON MAN: no, not that one... the other one

More than seven decades before Robert Downey jr climbed into his armored suit to do battle with an evil arms trader, Lew Ayres played a very different kind of IRON MAN, using only his fists and some nimble footwork to protect himself from brutal punishment.

Made in 1931, shortly after he'd shot to fame in 'All Quiet on the Western Front', the 23 year old stepped into the ring as Kid Mason, a young boxer with a one way ticket to Palookaville until his faithless wife Rose (an equally young Jean Harlow) walks out on him and he discovers the secret to success. Under the guidance of his paternal manager George Regan (Robert Armstrong), the Kid vanquishes all comers and acquires the nickname IRON MAN for his ability to withstand whatever his opponent can throw at him. Of course, the moment he gets a sniff at the title Rose miraculously reappears on the scene professing undying love for the newly wealthy pugilist.
This is not a particularly great movie but it's interesting for a couple of reasons. First of all it's a chance to watch two stars on the way up. After the huge success of "All Quiet.." the previous year Universal were keen to exploit their handsome young star in every way possible. IRON MAN was just one of five films Ayres appeared in in 1931. He really doesn't have the build to play a boxer but director Tod Browning finds every excuse to shoot him shirtless both in and out of the ring. In an obvious effort to make a story about boxing palatable to as big a female audience as possible there are numerous scenes featuring a half naked Ayres in the locker room, in his bedroom and in the shower.

Harlow was not yet the huge star she was shortly to become and she is clearly still a work in progress here. Rose is a generic movie gold-digger and could have been played equally well by any number of young actresses of the time, but Harlow succeeds in calling attention to herself as much by the daring amount of cleavage on show as by her acting prowess.
Director Browning is best remembered today for the two horror films he made either side of IRON MAN.- 'Dracula' and 'Freaks' - and IRON MAN comes off badly in comparison. It's certainly less creaky than 'Dracula' but the characters are unmemorable, the pacing is lethargic and the sets look better suited to the stage of a theatre than a studio soundstage. 
The film is mercifully short - just an hour and thirteen minutes - and one reason Browning is able to cram so much story into this space is the title sequence. It lasts just 53 seconds and includes an opening card featuring not only the film's title but also the names of the three leading actors, the producer, the director, the studio and the studio boss. There may not be much that 21st century Hollywood can learn from a relic like IRON MAN, but it is a masterclass in how to keep the opening credits short and to the point.

SHERLOCK HOLMES: punk spin on a golden era classic

In much the same way as Jon Pertwee will always be the definitive Dr Who to me because he's the one I grew up watching, so will Basil Rathbone forever be Sherlock Holmes.
Thanks to the BBC's habit of regularly screening his series of low budget 1940s thrillers I got hooked at an early age on Rathbone as the great detective and Nigel Bruce as his bumbling sidekick Dr Watson.
Although the films bore little relation to the original source material (especially after Universal took over the franchise in 1942) they became the yardstick against which I measured all other incarnations of the famous private detective.
In this context I should have hated director Guy Ritchie's action oriented punk-rock take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's creation at first sight.
But it kind of works.

As played by Robert Downey Jr, Holmes is considerably more physical and bohemian. He participates in bare knuckle boxing matches for recreation, and is given to jumping out of second storey windows while in pursuit of his quarry.
Jude Law as the faithful Dr Watson is as far removed from Nigel Bruce's idiotic old fogey as it's possible to get. This Watson is almost as sharp but not quite, and quick to exasperation over Holmes' idiosyncratic behaviour. 
Despite the pre-release hype over Downey's claim that he'd injected an element of homoeroticism in their relationship, the reality is that both men are firmly attached to other women. Watson's about to get engaged to an attractive and rather proper young governess while Holmes has unfinished business with Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), an alluring and dangerous former girlfriend who reappears to seduce and doublecross him.
Director Ritchie further stamps his mark on the storytelling with copious use of the jumpcut. It's like watching one of those youth targeted shows on cable tv where the picture continually cuts between different angles on the assumption that it's the only way to hold the interest of its short-attention-span-afflicted audience.
What's weird is that Ritchie then abandons this approach halfway into the film in favour of a less jagged, more straightforward style,  presumably in the belief that now he's got our full attention he can hold it without further need of visual gimmicks.
The story, about a renegade Lord's attempt to take over the government of Victorian Britain using black magic, takes an awful long time to tell and the action really starts to drag in the second half. It takes Downey over 2 hours to solve a case that Rathbone would have wrapped up in 70 minutes.
On the plus side Downey makes Holmes his own. He even made me forget about Rathbone for a while, and it's interesting to see a star of Law's stature playing a sidekick and doing it so effectively. While all actors have an ego Law must have checked his at the door because he gives Downey the space to perform without worrying about being overshadowed.
The end result is a superior class of blockbuster. It's reasonably enjoyable if not particularly memorable and having seen it once I have no desire to ever see it again. 
Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes, on the other hand, I can watch over and over again.