As a black guy I have to say Robert Downey Jr kills as a black dude lol.

Black dude here... This is my favorite RDJ role by far!!!!!! I lose it every time he says for 400 years that word has kept us down. 😄 RDJ killed it.

People often miss it... He took the G5 airplane. He then boarded the G5, flew to Vietnam, saved them, jumped back on his G5 and flew home.

RDJ wasn’t playing a black man. He was the dude playin' the dude, disguised as another dude!

The intro in theaters was genius. They had various trailers for real movies and just went straight into the fake ones in the movie without dimming the lights until the Dreamworks logo came up. Super disorienting!

Fun fact. Robert Downey's character says he does not break character till the DVD commentary is completed. Robert did the commentary still in the character of Lincoln Osiris.

Tom Cruise actually worked with Ben Stiller to come up with this role under the requirement that he can play it. So he was all in in the first place and wanted to do that. But "only when i can dance"

RDJ isn't in black face. Kirk Lazarus is. It's subtle, but it's different. lol

I've seen video of Cruise talking about playing Les Grossman. When Stiller originally asked him about it, Tom's only answer was apparently. "I wanna have fat hands, and I wanna dance."

Not only did Tom Cruise help create his role, but he spent years trying to get a Les Grossman solo movie going.

Am I the only one that feels old because almost no reactor ever recognizes Nick Nolte?

I don't know what NAACP thought about Downey Jr;'s portrail of a black man, but every black reactor I've watched on KZfaq loves it

Tom Cruise killed it in this movie.

As a black man, I had no issues with RDJ's performance. I thought it was great. It fell in line with the movies underlying theme: a Hollywood sattire. How many times did we see Caucasian actors play non caucassian roles. From The Jazz Singer to the Charlie Chan Movies to Scarface, to the Perez Family and on and on. I appreciate that this movie calls out the hypocrisy of Hollywood similar to how Blazing Saddles did 50 years ago.

Fun fact: I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t love this movie.

They should have called this movie “ Full Method Jacket”

RDJ is the funniest part of this movie, he pulled it off perfectly. People are too sensitive about comedy now, it’s not supposed to be taken seriously.

I’m so sad everyone misses the Apocalypse Now and Platoon references

What do you mean, you people?......What do YOU mean, you people?......Huh?!

I find Danny McBride's line about Jamie Lee Curtis especially humorous considering that he'd go on to co-write the recent trilogy of Halloween movies starring Curtis.

Every single reactor that sees this movie none (zero) ever called out the scene from Platoon. Go ahead find me one.

As an African -American, I thought RDJ's portrayal was hilarious. It's important to remember the context of the character. RDJ wasn't straight out playing blackface. He's playing a pretentious actor who believes he can play any role. Total satire.

It’s ok, you can laugh. You don’t have to hold it back.

There are almost no women in this movie. However, a woman has the funniest line. Maria Menounos doing the happy jack stutter, just brilliant.

One of my favorite details that most people miss is Osiris' lines (or maybe Kirk's lines as Osiris, in this case). Most of his lines are taken from various scripts and prep work he's done over the years. This is why he gets called out for quoting the Jeffersons' theme song. He watched a lot of that show in his prep to play Osiris. He can't ACTUALLY offer any advice as a black man. But he can quote a show that sounds like it's good advice. Later, he uses really weird Vietnamese pretending to be a farmer because all he can do is recite the Vietnamese he's learned from some script somewhere along the line. There's other little pieces of this detail spread throughout the film and it's such a clever touch on his character and how he interacts with the world around him.

Tropic Thunder staples: "Is this part of the movie?" "Is that Toby Maguire?" "Is that Tom Cruise?"

If Alpa Chino's character had not existed, I could understand a ton of black folk being wildly upset at Ben Stiller and RDJ for the character of Lincoln Osiris, but Ben Stiller said "Well, we cant make Kirk Lazarus black face decision work without an actual black character to be like "WTF?" Which is half of why the premise of a white actor doing blackface in this particualr context is funny without being offensive.

I wouldnt say black face which is usually a comically insulting method this as skin tinting and character transition. I as a black man never found anything but hilarity in this role Downey shared with us. Still hilarious almost 20 years later.

Whoa...Shan has not seen this? I could have sworn she reacted to this already? Well...no matter...not gonna complain, because my evening just got a whole lot better because I get to watch Shanelle react to this movie...and that is gonna be AWESOME! lol 😂

For 400 years that word has kept us down

2008 without a doubt saw the greatest comeback in movie history . First Iron Man makes RDJ a bigger star then he was before all of the drug busts and kicks off the most successful franchise in movie history with the MCU then this movie where he was nominated for a Oscar. RDJ had gotten back to making movies again after his last arrest to try to build up his career then suddenly Iron Man happens and he becomes a huge star out of nowhere.

"Snake and Nape" = Jets dropping Mk82 Snake Eye bombs, and Napalm.

I love all the Apocalypse Now and Platoon references.! 😂❤ Maybe a little Deer Hunter thrown in for good measure! Also an underrated line "DEA SCUM"! Ben "wait has there been some rewrites???" That still makes me LOL to this day for some reason!!!!

"gimme the GD map"😂😂😂 gets me everytime 😂

Fun Fact: Ben Stiller came up with the idea for Tropic Thunder whilst he was filming the JG Ballard biopic ‘Empire of The Sun’ alongside a very young Christian Bale. The film tells the story of Jamie "Jim" Graham (Christian Bale), a young boy who goes from living with his wealthy British family in Shanghai to becoming a prisoner of war in an internment camp operated by the Japanese during World War II. Empire of The Sun is one of Steven Spielberg's most ambitious efforts of the 1980s & remains an under-rated gem in the directors filmography.

Possibly the greatest Comedy in the 21st century. A stellar cast, hilarious writing, some solid action beats, and an amazing soundtrack. I'm looking forward to some Shan-Shock on this one. 😮🤣

Saving private Ryan, deer hunter, apocalypse now, mission impossible, Indiana jones, platoon, we were soldiers. Parody of all these movies.

I commented earlier that I hadn't finished the reaction yet but now that I have. Once again I'm black and as far as I can remember there was no reaction from black people. I believe that it was understood what RDJ was portraying and how ridiculous it is. Also if people wants to be offended they should check out the westerns that still come on tv with white ppl playing Native Americans and calling them the red man while still referring to black characters as n@#+&s . So if that's ok then this is ok, I don't wanna get on my soap box but the world has become too sensitive.

This was the first movie my niece saw Robert Downey Jr in. So when she finally saw him in a movie as a white guy it blew her mind! She actually thought he was black! LOL

“Not even Tarantino would do this..” Oliver Stone did almost exactly this in Platoon🤣

RDJ received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for this movie.

Why worry about RDJ playing black and not Eddie Murphy playing old white Jew (Coming to America)

1:58 "Feels very dropped in the jungle..." Oh honey... .

It isn’t a love letter, it is making fun of self- important actors.

Fun fact: RDJ was actually nominated for Best Supporting Actor that year, losing out to Heath Ledger's Joker in Dark Knight.

Whoever edited this did the watchers a pretty major disservice. Edit out all the 'wait for it lines' and moments.. or maybe they were just saving the disappointment when she won't laugh because she's "uncomfortable"

Ben Stiller is a huge Star Trek fan and includes references to it in almost every one of his films.

Just saw the thumbnail and had to come right over. One of the best comedies of all time.

I don't get why people may think this will offend anyone, unless insecurity and lack of humour is present.. As many times before its common that other people take offence, than the "imitated" group. Anyway this movie is funne, and its satire. And it's so very important to protect. As this kind of movie is not possible in anyway today. Sadly. So great that you watched this, as this hopefully will make people laugh and enjoy humour. While the satire will provoke some deeper thoughts after the screen goes black 😊

Kirk Lazarus said he doesn't break character until after DVD commentary, and the DVD commentary is RDJ in character

I thought you would like this more, missed a bunch of classic lines in the edit… it was a brilliant image to Hollywood film industry.

I’m always surprised when movie reaction channels haven’t seen some movies.. I wouldn’t have expected shanelle not to have at least known how much of a big deal this movie is… I’m bias because I grew up watching movies tho

8:11 Wrong. He is not in blackface. RDJ is making fun of pretentious method actors

I think it's one of the Blu-ray extras. In a deleted scene they explain the kid is in charge of that processing plant because his father is a drug lord.

In the opening sequence, the enemy had Reverse Stormtrooper Syndrome. They just could not miss hitting Ben Stiller. 😂😂😂

"les grossman" in French: les gross mains = big hands

My test for people to be in my life is the Tropic Thunder test. If the person isn't laughing all movie at this film i can't f with your personality! What a movie!!!

From what Ive gathered over the years online as a person who doesnt live in the US, there are 2 issues with blackface: 1. In the past, blackface was an offensive caricature of what black people look like. 2. Blackface being used to not hire black actors. I think that the blackface in this movie is not met with much negativity, because its neither used to make fun of black people, nor could they have hired an actually black person to play this role, so RDJ didnt take this away from anyone.

I can nkt believe she didn't include the line "what do you mean what do you mean you pepole" that's one if the best and funniest lines of the whole movie. lol

I remember reading an article in either Time or Newsweek where they talked about 2 brothers who were made leaders of their rebel group because they were believed to be of divine progeny. This movie was satirizing incidents similar to that with the boy being in charge.

I love watching people try to hold in the laughter while trying to not offend 😂✌️

Saw this in the theater with a bunch of friends so the trailers opening caught us off guard and was a bunch of fun. Also, not knowing anything else about this movie when Les Grossman showed up it was "Why does he look so OMG it's Tom Cruise!" Happy you liked it.

Excellent! Is he dead? We all asked that in the theatre... then Jack Black yells out Yeah! Almost as if answering all of our questions in the theater!

It's actually a modern "Blazing Saddles" have you seen the Mel Brooks classic yet? I think you did but I've watched so many reactions i cannot keep straight who has done what anymore. (This is one of the best comedies of all time!) ❤😂❤😂❤😂❤😂

As a promo for this movie JB, Stiller, Robert D. Jr did a skit for American Idol as background Singers/Dancers The Pips for Gladys Knight Midnight Train to Georgia song. And after the film came out Tom Cruise actually dressed as his character and had a big dance number at the MTV Movie Awards.

Jamie Fox insisted that RDJ had to take the part. Basically convinced him that the part cant be played any other way.

Damn I was expecting more laughs outta this one it's one of the funniest ever

0 Second Brigade is here.

I honestly feel so stupid these days: when I saw this in theaters I legitimately had no idea the producer was Tom Cruise until the end! I kept thinking "damn, he looks so familiar" then the credits rolled 😵‍💫

Another great Ben Stiller movie is the super hero comedy, Mystery Men.

Robert Downey Jr. caught some criticism by a few people for the role, but the vast majority of the criticism went to Ben Stiller and the Simple Jack character. "You m...muh m...muh muh make me happy."

For me this is one of the funniest movies made. I watch it still twice a year. I was recommended this movie by a black friend. All my black coworkers in New Orleans were totally ok with RDJ. They thought it was super funny. Thanks for the reaction!

On KZfaq you can find various interviews with both Downey & Cruise about their roles in this movie... Downey's interview on Joe Rogan was particularly revealing in his mindset, coming off of filimg Iron Man, deciding to do THIS and wondering if he had made the biggest mistake of his life. My favourite quote of his was him saying to Rogan 'if it doesnt work out at least ill get to be Black for a summer'. Cruise did an interview on BBC1, he said that he and Stiller were friends and after reading the script orginially the character of the studio head wasnt in it, but on his advice Stiller wrote it in and got him to read it again. After reading the character, Cruise said 'Ill do it, but I want fat hands and I want to dance'. Both turned out to be epic roles for a couple of epically talented actors in one of the best comedies of all time.

Tom Cruise and Ben Stiller have been friends for decades. Ben used to impersonate Tom on his variety show "The Ben Stiller Show" in the early 90s. He made mention of the film to Tom, and Tom's one request waws he'd do it if he could have "fat hands." The rest is history.

“Fartin in bathtubs and laughing your ass off” 🤣

I'm glad you enjoyed this movie, loved how the way you laughed throughout. Great reaction as always

My favorite line probably “I’m moving to catering after this”. Yep❤

This isn't a love-letter to the film industry, it's a brilliant criticism of it; the egos, the addictions, the soul-selling, all of it. It was made, however, by people who love making movies.

Also, it's well documented how tobey maguire had a whole douchebag phase in his spider-man years and how the fame went to his head, so the fact that he was willing to be part of a movie that made a joke about his biggest achievement as an actor being an mtv movie award for best kiss really says something. I mean, in a movie about how big actors' egos are, to have an actor's ego roasted like that... and he's still game?

"WTF DID I JUST WATCH" So nice to see you get it.

Comedians and comedy writers are absolutely trying to get audiences to laugh their asses off about every irreverent scene ever, by making you laugh not necessarily at the act depicted but the stupidity that landed said characters in that situation: - man stepping on landmine and exploding to bits - man eating another man's flesh dripping out of his head - man in blackface - man acting mentally disabled - man acting mentally disabled getting beaten - women getting whacked by rifle - kids getting crushed by Jack Black landing on him - flatulence humor - young kid getting punched and yeeted off an exploding bridge (to a mini-Wilhelm scream)

People need to think about how confused we kids were at that opening in the movie theater. Took us a second to realize after the bust a nut and booty sweat ad.

As of when the movie came out Tom Cruise was in a hybrid of serious action movies with serious drama movies. As far as I remember there was no indication he was going to be in Tropic Thunder. Even though it's very obvious now when you watch it that it's him, because of all the serious work he'd done--and his generally intense demeanor, it was a true surprise in-viewing that the character was him! It's why they kept the credit until the last. Love this movie!

Now look what you've done. I have to set aside a WHOLE evening to do the watch along on Patreon. Top ten comedy of all time on anyone's list.

Oh, I've been waiting for this. One of my two favorite comedies of the last 25 years, the other also being a satire/mockumentary that should be in your list (Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story).

You need to watch Mystery Men

Fun Fact: Tom Cruise read Ben Stiller's script and said he wants to be in it, and gave Ben the description of who he plays. It was Tom's idea, not Ben's

You call Tom's role "Silly", I call it brilliant and hilarious.

"The only line to the chopper and he's Jesus Christ?!" I can't help but think that the "And I am Jesus Christ, his only son..." line is a Hamlet 2 reference. I won't say more, but you absolutely need to see Hamlet 2 Shan. The theater kid in you will have a blast.

Thanks to the folks for enabling the reaction of Shanelle hyperventilating to suggesting this, priceless.

😄👍 This film essentially has the same plot as "Three Amigos" (1986). A bunch of idiots in a foreign country think they're filming a movie and have no idea that the bad guys are actually firing real bullets at them.

First: I'm so happy this gem is getting some attention from a reaction channel. Second: With your knowledge of cinema-crit, you are the perfect person to react to it. Couldn't be better!

I think calling this movie a “love letter to Hollywood” might be a bit of a stretch. It’s making fun of Hollywood in every way it can. And I’m well aware a movie can do both, but I don’t think this is that movie.

I had to laugh when you declared the Alpa Chino character one of the grounded straight(so to speak) men of the cast 🤣 Just goes to show how wild the rest of the characters are lol.

42:59 Two different people. Ethan Coen is one half of the Coen brothers. Etan Cohen was one of the writers for this movie

I saw this one in the theater at Balad Air Force Base while we were waiting to leave Iraq at the end of our deployment. I loved it. It was one of the best things I saw in Iraq.

This came out while I was deployed to Iraq. I lament all the great films teleased while I was deployed ( The Dark Knight, Tropic Thunder, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk...)

I saw this in the theater with my brother. We had a total blast!

It's always funny seeing how people react to the humor in this movie. In 2024 it seems edgy and shocking to certain people but it's completely harmless and I think there's just a lot of brilliant little moments throughout it.

Something that's missed by most reactors... Ben Stiller's character getting shot at the beginning of the movie is a direct homage to Willem Dafoe's Sargent Elias in Oliver Stone's "Platoon