DVD Review: Tropic Thunder — How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Dentist

Interior, day.  Dentist office.  Swanky set-up, I can tell you.  Perky hygienist takes me back to a plush mauve chair, blinds open to a view of a peaceful woodland scene.  They've installed new, big flat-screens for the patients to watch movies while they're worked on.  

"What'll it be?  We've got most of the new releases?"

Let's see, hmmm.  Something to take my mind off the smell of burning enamel and a high-pitched screaming drill.  Something funny?

"Say, do you have Tropic Thunder?"

"Theatre or Un-Rated version?"

"Ratings are for wimps, let's go hard!" 

Leaning back, relaxed.  Love Stiller flicks: Mary, Dodgeball, Polly, Starsky, Night Museum . . . you get it.  The Downey  rocks.  Jack Black?  That's how I roll!  Opening credits . . . Hygienist comes back.  

"We're going to give you something to numb you up."

"Oh, okay.  Sure."  Back to the movie.  What is that, a nitrous max?  Nice.  Novocain too?  Super.

Trying to focus on the movie.  I'm laughing, tired, so tired, can't keep eyes open.  Hygienist is back.  A bunch of other people too.  My lids lose the battle to stay open.  "Yeah, he's out, WAY out," registers just before I go away.

Interior, time of day unk, dark, flashing lights, loud music, general cacophony.

Something has awakened me.  Music blaring.  What?  Not Tropic Thunder on the t.v. anymore.  What is that?  Rammstein Live Aus Berlin maybe?  Disturbing.  Fire, leather, sweaty mean pumping out monstrous metal chords . . . I shake my head.   Ball-gag in mouth.  I'm groggy.

I blink and blink, trying to clear my vision.  I go to wipe my dewy brow, Ah!, can't move my arms.  Shackled?  Strapped down?  Naked!  My  legs are stirruped, spread wide, high in the air.  Baby sweet Jesus!  Something else, pain in my ratatouille.  Something metal glimmering, and maybe dried blood?  My frenulum is pierced!  I've been Prince Albert'd!  

Sobbing now, afraid to cry too loud.  Fight the stirrups and straps that bind me.  Trying to call forth some kind of Steve Rogers' strength and courage to break free.

4 or 5 people enter.  Strips of black, shiny leather accentuate their nakedness.  They are oiled, excited and earthy . . . Something big, shiny, gleaming and tubular . . . The sound of lube squirting into the air . . . Wha-wha-what!?  But only muffled sounds make it past the ball-gag.

Rammstein plays on, wildly - Bück Dich - mocking me . . . taunting me . . . 

Bück dich - befehl ich dir

Wende dein antlitz ab von mir

Dein gesicht ist mir egal

Bück dich

"Sheee-it!  He's awake!"

The nitrous masks descends, I thrash my head back and forth to no avail . . .

Exterior.  Day, morning?  Alley.  

I awake with a start.  I'm so sore, everywhere, more so in some places.  Hot shame colors my cheeks.  Still naked.  Raw, itchy pain on my arm.  A half-man half-goat tattoo (satyr?) - a nice one - stares up at me from my right bicep.  I can almost hear the jaunty tune he's playing on his pan flute . . .

I cobble together an outfit of cardboard and newspapers.  A local transient stares at me in bewilderment from the lee side of a dumpster.  I go up to him and brace him against the alley wall.

"What day is it?  The date!"

"12th . . . December . . . Friday . . ."

"What year!"

4 days . . . gone, like that.  The psychological damage irreparable.  I wonder if I had only chosen a different movie to watch, would that have mattered?  The hardest thing is deciding what I should tell you and what not to. Well, anyway, I've  got a while yet before you're old enough to understand the tapes. They're more for me at this point . . . to help get it all straight. Should I tell you about your father? That's a tough one. Will it change your decision to send him here . . . knowing? But if you don't send Kyle, you could never be. God, you can go crazy thinking about all this . . . I suppose I'll tell you . . . I owe him that. And maybe it'll be enough if you know that in the few hours we had together we loved a lifetime's worth. 

In the end, for closure's sake, I watched Tropic Thunder from start to finish.  Between bouts of wild vomiting and seizures I decided I didn't really like it much.  It was a bit over-hyped, not as uproariously funny as I had hoped.  A few chuckles here and there but not worth going through what I did to finally see it.  Very predictable & cliched.  I recognize what they were trying to do and I can even see why critics and the viewing audience may have liked this one. 

Will I still go see Night at the Museum II next year?  Bet on it.  And Iron Man II: Cure for Rust will be awesome.  And I'll be first in line for School of Rock Part Deux.  But for some reason, despite the fact that I logically should have loved this movie and in spite of the phenomenal ensemble cast, I probably won't even pause to check this one out while surfing the telly.

I am in a perpetual state of full retard . . .