The Cinema of Benjamin Edward Stiller

Supposedly Charlie Chaplin once said something to the effect of:

“If a man slips and falls in a wide shot it’s comedy, yet if that same man slips and falls in a close-up then it is drama.”

As oversimplified as that is, this little maxim has been held as gospel ever since. Sure it's possible to shoot comedy in other ways. It just isn’t done very often due to how difficult it is to make it work. Pick any three comedies made over the last 70 years and the odds are fairly good that all three will be shot wide and brightly lit. Ben Stiller’s latest film “Tropic Thunder” is not that type of comedy.

Ben Stiller is not a bad director. His debut feature “Reality Bites” is very watchable and well put together. It, along with the dark comedy classic “The Cable Guy” firmly establishes Stiller’s ability to craft a comedy with some poignancy. He can also do comedy that’s just plain absurd and broad like “Zoolander”. On “Tropic Thunder” he is attempting to have his cake and eat it too. The results are decidedly mixed.

When one first hears the premise of “Tropic Thunder” the first films that come to mind are biting satires like “The Player” and “Wag the Dog”, and when the film opens that is very much the case. A mock ad and a series of three faux trailers mercilessly rip on thug culture consumerism, over-sequelized action films, flatulence based comedies and Oscar® bating art pics. Had the film been able to keep up this ruthless energy we might be looking at the best comedy of the summer. Unfortunately that is not the case – though it’s still pretty funny.

At a fairly rapid pace the film flips from one type of comedy to another. There are gore jokes, race jokes, industry/inside jokes, celebrity jokes, absurdist jokes, film reference jokes, meta jokes, etc. Now the jokes in and of themselves are for the most part funny. The problem is their juxtaposition with one another.

The transitions from one type of comedy to the next are so rapid and unexpected that they end up disorienting the audience and preventing them from enjoying the joke. You are suddenly reminded that ‘oh yeah it’s that type of comedy too.’ Many of the jokes become funnier on the ride home.

This is really unfortunate because many of the jokes are extremely hilarious and cutting. Let us please not forget the jaw-droppingly awesome performance of Robert Downey Jr. as the ultimate method actor. His line about not dropping character until he does the DVD commentary is worth the price of admission alone. And maybe that’s where Mr. Stiller's opus will truly be able to flourish and be appreciated – with the aid of a pause and chapter skip button.