Screenwriter: Noah Baumbach (Fantastic Mr. Fox)
Director: Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale)
Actors: Ben Stiller (Zoolander), Jennifer Jason Leigh (Easy Money), Juno Temple (Year One) and Rhys Ifans (The Boat That Rocked)

Labels: Ben Stiller, film, Jennifer Jason Leigh, movie trailer

I have a number of complaints about this film and hardly any praise. The broadest complaint I cast at this production is that it is simply not funny. The jokes are heavy handed and buried in self-referential smugness and/or so blatantly intended to be edgy they come off as sophomoric pranks. The film follows a group of self involved actors and a director into the depths of a Vietnamese jungle as they attempt to shoot an improvised war film. When the director is killed by a landmine the actors are left to fend for themselves. Still thinking the film is loaded with special effects and extras, the actors are in reality attacked by drug runners. Essentially, this is The Three Amigos without the plotting.

The biggest problem with the film is sloppiness. It is just messy. The scenes trail on for too long and stumble over obvious attempts at industry in-jokes. When they're not busy with their self-mockery the cast doesn't have anything to do. Their characters are very flat so when it comes time to pull on their conflicts to create comedy the results are hobbled by a lack of depth. This pushes the cast (Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Junior, Jack Black, Steve Coogan, and Jay Baruchel) to improvise, a task they are clearly not up to completing. With the exception of Robert Downey, everyone fumbles about like their stuck in the trailing moments of a poorly executed Saturday Night Live skit. They appear to be sticking to humorless vein attempting to find something to deliver and coming up dry. Downey only succeeds to be interesting because of his portrayal of an white Australian pretending to be an African American. This isn't funny but it gives him something to play off of. An example of this fumbling is seen directly following the death of the film's director when he steps on a landmine. His body is decimated by the explosion. In the scene action-movie star Tugg Speedman (Stiller) is convinced that the horrible death he's just witnessed is fake. He locates the director's decapitated head and holds it up for the other actors to see. He proclaims that its all movie magic. He then reaches into the shredded neck of the dead man's head and licks the blood from his fingers. To push things further, Stiller then pulls out the guts from the neck and head while claiming it is a fake head. To push things even further he puts the dead man's head on the butt of his gun. This is all intended to be funny. The whole movie is like this scene. No creativity, no genuine humor, just a bunch of careless elites trying to be edgy and over-the-top.

Beyond the lack of humor and the abundance of clumsy crassness, there are some other very serious issues that need to be addressed. When the film was released there was an outcry from advocacy groups for the intellectually impaired. I wrote about the controversy here. Having worked with the mentally retarded for years, knowing the families of mentally challenged people and seeing the effects of people's bigotry against the handicapped, I take the subject rather seriously. The film hit controversy because of a slew of jokes surrounding one of Tugg Speedman's films called Simple Jack. In this fake film, we see the trailer in the movie, Speedman plays Jack a mentally retarded man who can speak with animals. Stiller is shown in the role chasing a butterfly with a hammer, and generally overplaying the retarded man role. I actually didn't take too much offense at this. It was meant to be offensive and meant to mock how Hollywood handles the mentally retarded. At one point they have Downey and Stiller talk about how actors don't go "full-retard" for roles, meaning they play a mentally challenged person but that person always has a special ability (Forrest Gump was a great runner, Rain Man was a genius at counting, etc.) This is very true. Where the film crosses the line, at least to me, is with Speedman's agent Rick Peck (Matthew McConaughey.) Directly following a conversation focused directly on Simple Jack, right after we see the trailer, Peck is reminded that Speedman is attempting to adopt a child. Peck then grumbles that Speedman is lucky because "At least you get to choose yours. I'm stuck with mine." They then insert a picture of Peck and his son (below.)
The son is clearly shown as being mentally deficient in some capacity. In light of the discussion that directly preceded this shot the implication is heavy that the child is mentally challenged. In an age where people righteously proclaim that it is moral to abort mentally retarded children (Google Trig Palin and marvel at things you find) it is unbelievable to me they would stoop so low as to show a mentally challenged person and push the notion they are a terrible burden. I know families of the intellectually disabled, they love their family member as any other. People with disabilities are brutally treated still in this society and have been treated as less than human throughout our collective histories. This mockery is the lowest kind of humor people can get involved in. To push it further, the film ends with a shot of Peck and his son on a private jet. The son, bib around his neck stares blankly out the window (below.)


In post-production, the controversy was heating up. In the final credits they show the characters, freeze-frame on them and insert a graphic around their image. In the case of the son, they surround him with video-game aliens. In my opinion, this was done to suggest that the kid was simply mind-numbed from too much media. This was never acknowledged in the film, something they would have mentioned since it could have been used to play up some jokes. I believe they did this to try to remove the concept the boy was mentally retarded. Of course, most viewers won't make this connection and still walk away having laughed at a boy for being handicapped.

If this weren't enough, Stiller also mocks the memorable image from Oliver Stone's film Platoon. The image where Sgt. Elias is shot and as he dies thrusts his arms up to the sky in a Christ-like motion. This mockery is done a couple of times. Throughout the film, Stiller and company attempt to make fun of war film imagery and theatrics. The problem I have here is the root of that image. Stone pulled that image very carefully from a real event and used it in his film as a memorial. The original image comes from a 1968 photograph by Art Greenspon of a paratrooper of A Company, 101st Airborne assisting wounded and dying men. Perhaps I am being overly sensitive, but the mockery of real events such as this are disrespectful. You can say, well he's really mocking Stone's use of the image besides, no one is getting hurt. I understand that there are different ways to take the use of the image. I argue that it is bad taste and disrespectful.

Ultimately, this film is little more that a gaggle of careless people who have grown up in privilege (mostly) who devised a little piece of meta-fiction to mock the frivolity that surrounds them. In doing this however they also reveal an incredible disconnect with any sense of responsible behavior or decorum. I get they were trying to push the envelope, but we need to have standards. A society without standards is one that cannot stand for long. These men are the heirs of greater talents both in a familial sense and cinematic ally. Our culture has been handed over to reckless men who care little about the results of their actions and care even less to putting in the creative energy to deliver worthwhile product. I strongly advise skipping this film. It is not funny and even if someone is completely lacking moral judgment, offensive for no reason whatsoever beyond just to be offensive. Don't you have better things to do than to watch something like this?


Related Reviews:
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Zero Effect (1998)
Zoolander (2001)


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Labels: Ben Stiller, film, Jack Black, movie review, Nick Nolte, Robert Downey Jr, Steve Coogan

Screenwriters: Robert Ben Garant (Balls of Fury) and Thomas Lennon (Reno 911!: Miami)
Director: Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum)
Actors: Ben Stiller (Zoolander), Amy Adams (Enchanted), Owen Wilson (Bottle Rocket), Steve Coogan (Around the World in 80 Days), Ricky Gervais (Ghost Town), Christopher Guest (Waiting for Guffman) and Bill Hader (Tropic Thunder)

Labels: Amy Adams, Ben Stiller, film, movie trailer, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan

Director: Eric Darnell (Antz) and Tom McGrath (Shrek the Third)
Actors: Ben Stiller (Tropic Thunder), Sacha Baron Cohen (Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby), David Schwimmer (Apt Pupil), Jada Pincket Smith (The Women), Tommy Lister (The Fifth Element), Chris Rock (The Longest Yard), and Cedric the Entertainer (Man of the House)

Labels: animated, Ben Stiller, Cedric the Entertainer, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, film, Jada Pinkett Smith, movie trailer, Sacha Baron Cohen

The comedy Tropic Thunder has hit a spot of controversy. The film, fronted by Ben Stiller, is about a group of actors who get caught up in a real life battle while filming a Vietnam War film. The movie is packed with jokes mocking Hollywood's excesses. The joking extends to the marketing of the film. Faux trailers, movie posters and even a fake energy drink is all a part of the marketing plan. Dreamworks recently removed a site featuring one of the fake trailers. The joke trailer for the fake film Simple Jack, featured a thread of jokes about a mentally retarded man portrayed by Ben Stiller. The trailer is meant as satire. The trailer angered many families of those with intellectual disabilities. Following a number of complaints from the likes of Timothy P. Shriver, chairman of the Special Olympics, Dreamworks took the trailer down. However the film is still laced with references to "retards" and going "full retard", etc.


Back in the 1980's a similar, although with less controversy, issue occurred with the release of the comedy Sixteen Candles when a jock suggested Molly Ringwald's character was retarded because she was staring at her long interest too long. Similar cries of foul erupted. From what I've seen of the film, the use of the word "retard" and the general attitude towards the disabled is even more belligerent. Moreover, it's just not funny - then again it's a Ben Stiller movie, none of his products are funny. The issue here really isn't the use of the word "retard", it's how it's applied. It is the dismissive attitude towards the disabled. This isn't the first movie Stiller has been in that contained jokes about mental retardation. Something About Mary had a mentally challenged character named Warren. Warren's disability was used for laughs. These jokes were hilarious and inoffensive. Why were they acceptable when the jokes in Tropic Thunder are not? Attitude. Screenwriters Bob and Peter Farrelly took obvious care when writing Warren's part. They showed him not as a dim-eyed abomination but as a real person with a supporting and loving family. He wasn't the joke. The reactions of others to his disability was where the humor was found. Everything I've seen of Tropic Thunder mocks the disabled directly, even if its meant to be ironic. This is a stark difference.

Ben Stiller and company should know that satire can be a delicate thing, in particular when you're dealing with sensitive issues, but they clearly don't. They want to satiric and ironic but ended up screwing the works because of sloppiness. I understand they were intending to show how Hollywood softens mental retardation by giving the characters special abilities - he's mentally disabled but he can do math better than anyone! The problem is how the satire is delivered. Now groups defending the mentally disabled are calling for a full boycott. This weekend will bring small groups of well intentioned people holding signs and yelling in front of theaters claiming the "R-Word" (retard) is not acceptable. Others are lobbying congress to investigate if this film steps into the realm of the dreaded "hate speech". For those of you who are offended by the film, I understand your pain and concern. I've worked with the mentally challenged, and have great affection for the community. Attacks shouldn't go unanswered, but the response should be retrained and firmly directed. Street protests and appealing to congress are the wrong answers. When confronted by material you find offensive, it is best to appeal to people to avoid the products. It is likewise good for leaders to engage the media to call people out. When people ask for the government to investigate or cite "hate speech" they are going too far. It is one thing to shame someone for their speech, it is another to use the power of government to bully them into silence. Don't even get me started on using the term "The R-Word". Are you kidding me?

What is your opinion? Should the film be boycotted for its content? Is protesting offensive movies a worthwhile tactic?

Labels: Ben Stiller, miscellaneous

Here's the latest foul deposit tugged out of Ben Stiller's cat box of comedy. Thanks to a string of coincidences a group of actors filming a war movie get caught up in a situation where they must act like soldiers. If this looks good to you just remember this was penned by Stiller who is also responsible for the cinematic blight Zoolander. This production seems to match Stiller's other offerings, a solid concept completely ruined by a lack of actually humorous jokes.

Movies about making movies are very rarely worth the effort. They are usually littered with inside jokes and shop talk and give the audience little to identify with. Maybe they'll pull this off but given Stiller's track record of making truly awful comedies, it doesn't seem very likely to me.



Screenwriter: Ben Stiller (Zoolander), Justin Theroux, and Ethan Cohen (Idiocracy)
Director: Ben Stiller (The Cable Guy)
Actors: Ben Stiller (Mystery Men), Jack Black (School of Rock), Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Brandon T. Jackson (Envy), Steve Coogan (Night at the Museum), Nick Nolte (Weeds), Tom Cruise (Vanilla Sky), Tobey Macquire (Spider-Man), Matthew McConaughey (Sahara), and Mickey Rooney (Baby Face Nelson)

Labels: Ben Stiller, comedy, film, Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey, movie trailer, Nick Nolte, Robert Downey Jr, Steve Coogan, Tobey Macquire, Tom Cruise

A forgotten film about quirky detective Daryl Zero (Bill Pullman) as he uncovers a case of blackmail with his sidekick Steve Arlo (Ben Stiller.) This is a very clever and entertaining piece that should have gotten more attention than it ultimately received. The performances are nothing great and even the plot is somewhat tired but this movie has plenty of personality that makes up for the mediocre spots. Its worth the price of a cheap rental.


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Labels: Ben Stiller, Bill Pullman, film, movie review