Good start, but then it gets ruined

Better Late Then Never

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

In my opinion, "Tropic Thunder" is one of the best films of 2008, maybe the best comedy movie from that year. Here Steve Coogan (who also was in this film) and Justin Theroux come up with a making-of mockumentary which looks exactly the way you would expect it if you have seen the feature film this refers too. There is all kinds of subtle humor in here and fake over-the-top drama and which also makes this a very nice watch is that pretty much every major cast member (except Cruise) from the movie is featured in here and be it only for a couple seconds. It even elaborates on the story and gives us some witty and entertaining background information on the major characters. While I would not go so far and say that it is as good as the film, I still recommend it, especially if you love Steve Coogan as much as I do. It's really tough to think of anybody whose approach to comedy these days is hitting the nail on the head more than his. The "Desperate Housewives" van scene was pure gold. Good stuff here, 30 minutes worth watching.

If any of you are fans of German master-wild-man filmmaker Werner Herzog, or the Apocalypse Now documentary Hearts of Darkness, this is about as must see as you can get with DVD extras. I'm not sure where the other person on IMDb saw it, but it's available on the unrated director's cut DVD of Tropic Thunder and it makes the extra disc worth every penny. Along with the added "deleted scenes" called "Dispatches from the Edge of Madness", Rain of Madness chronicles the sorrowful story of Steve Coogan's hapless director character Damien Cogburn, who met his fate at a landmine in the middle of the jungle with his unaware actors. We see the madness that was the making of the movie "Tropic Thunder" from the perspective of Jan Jurgen- the Herzog imitation done brilliantly cheaply by co-writer Justin Theroux- who narrates and occasionally looks at a video like said landmine explosion like it's the footage of Grizzly Man Herzog just couldn't show us delicate viewers.It's mostly brilliant improv, with maybe one or two seconds that aren't. Some of the best bits come with the Diva-style attitude of Tug Speedman (Stiller) as he wont leave his trailer, makes hazardous line changes to his baffled director, and then does a tasteless imitation of his 'real-life' character Four Leaf Tayback (Nolte) with the two-hand hook appendages. But a lot of the credit must go to Coogan- his fans will die watching him in some of these bits- who improvs his way through some ridiculous bits; even more-so than during the movie. And even better in the 'Dispatches' section on the DVD is a scene where Downey Jr as Kirk Lazarus "in character" as Osiris goes to the "family" of Osiris' and has his fake family go through torture, exorcisms, and a "Grape soda technological workshop" or whatever, which had me literally crying laughing. It is, basically, one of the funniest DVD extras ever.

This 30-minute "making of" documentary spoof features Jan Jürgen (Justin Theroux), an eccentric German director, as he chronicles the troubled production of "Tropic Thunder." First of all, this whole thing is an obvious homage to (and parody of) "Hearts of Darkness" - the infamous documentary that covered the chaotic production of "Apocalypse Now" (as well as focusing on Francis Ford Coppola's nervous breakdown of sorts).In "Rain of Madness," however, Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) takes on the Coppola role, and Jan Jürgen, the filmmaker and narrator of the feature, is a clear parody of Werner Herzog; there's a great moment at the end of this spoof where Jürgen is shown watching a graphic video of a man dying - anyone who's seen "Grizzly Man" immediately recognizes the shot, and Theroux's over-the-top reaction to the video - and his immediate decision to watch it again - is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time.One cool thing about this "documentary" is that it adds an extra universe to Tropic Thunder; that film had a lot of fictional layers, giving its characters full backdrops (including fake websites and movie trailers), and the shame of it all was that so little time was afforded to some of the characters. If you thought Coogan was funny in "Tropic Thunder" but wanted to see more of him, then this will cheer you up, because it's essentially focused entirely on him; watching this video before seeing "Tropic Thunder" actually makes the performance (and character) all the funnier, because you have a context that is lacking from the actual film itself.