Brand NEW and factory SEALED (within clear film ‘shrink-wrap’).

 

Official British and Irish release, which has a decent selection of Special Features/Bonus Material (as detailed on rear of case and in Item Specifics section above).

 

Originally bought from HMV on offer, as indicated by the removable cover sticker (4 x DVDs for £20, or £7 each).  Beware of fake DVDs and used copies which have been resealed!

 

Description:

Ben Stiller directs and stars in a high-concept action comedy about a pampered actor, his co-stars and the film crew struggling against Murphy's Law during the production of a big-budget war film, and just what happens when the actors become possessed by the bravura of their onscreen counterparts and become part of a real war in a Southeast Asian jungle... Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., Steve Coogan, and Nick Nolte co-star in this DreamWorks production.

 

Details:

Aspect Ratio : 16:9 - 2.35:1

Language: English

Product Dimensions : 19 x 13.5 x 1.4 cm; 60 Grams

Audio Description: : English

Manufacturer reference : unknown

Director : Ben Stiller

Media Format : PAL

Run time : 1 hour and 42 minutes

Release date : 26 Jan. 2009

Actors : Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black, Steve Coogan, Jay Baruchel

Studio : Paramount

Number of discs : 1

Customer reviews: 4.6 out of 5 stars    (1,678 ratings)

 

Review:

It's not really a knock to say that nothing in Tropic Thunder is funnier than its first five minutes, so sly that - especially for people watching in theatres - you don't realise right away they are the opening minutes of the movie. This outrageous comedy begins with a series of fake previews, each introducing one of the main characters in the film-proper (not that there's anything proper about this film) and each bearing the familiar logo of a different motion picture studio: Universal, DreamWorks SKG, et al. Such playing fast and loose with corporate talismans verges on sacrilege, but it's an index of how much le tout Tinseltown endorses the movie as a demented valentine to itself.

The premise is that the cast of a would-be "Son of Rambo" movie shooting in some Southeast Asian jungle get into a real shooting war with drug-smuggling montagnards (hill-dwelling people from the highlands of Vietnam). Don't ask--though the movie does have an answer - why such highly paid, usually ultra-pampered personnel as superhero Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), Mozart of fart comedy Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), hip-hop artist Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson), and five-time Oscar-winner Kirk Lazarus from Aus-try-leeah (Robert Downey Jr.) should be running through the jungle unattended and very vulnerable.

It matters only that the real-life cast has a high time kidding their own profession and flexing their comedic muscles. Bonus points go to Stiller for co-writing the script (with Justin Theroux) and directing, and to Downey, brilliant as a white actor surgically turned black actor for his role and utterly committed to staying in character no matter what ("I don't drop character till I done the DVD commentary").

Be warned: The movie, too, is committed - to being an equal-opportunity offender. Its political incorrectness extends not only to Lazarus's black-like-me posturing but also Speedman's recent, Sean Penn–style Oscar bid playing a cognitively challenged farmboy - or, in Lazarus's deathless phrase, "going the full retard."

Others in the cast include Steve Coogan as a director out of his depth, Nick Nolte as the Viet-vet novelist whose book inspired the film-within-the-film, Matthew McConaughey as Speedman's sun-blissed agent back home, and Tom Cruise - bald, fat-suited, and profane - as an epically repulsive studio head. Two hours running time is a mite excessive, but otherwise, what's not to like?! - Richard T. Jameson