-unrated Director--s Cut-... - Tropic Thunder -2008-

A door slams. A lock turns. The screen goes to static.

The title card slams down over a new cold open:

No animals were harmed. Several actors’ egos were. This film is dedicated to the real simple jacks of Hollywood: the script supervisors. Tropic Thunder -2008- -Unrated Director--s Cut-...

We open not in Vietnam, but at a Tobey Maguire-era Spider-Man 3 press junket, 2007. A nervous Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr., still as the “Australian method actor”) is asked about his controversial “pigmentation alteration” for an upcoming war film. Before he can answer, the screen glitches. A distorted voice— “The director’s cut is not for you. It’s for the people they left behind.” —throws us into a VHS-quality audition tape.

“They forgot me here. The director’s cut never ends. Send… craft services…” A door slams

While hiding in a mud pit, Kirk Lazarus breaks character to ask Tugg: “Wait. Are we… are we in a comedy?” Tugg replies, “No, man. This is a gritty period drama.” A subtitle appears on screen: It is neither. Another subtitle: But the mine is real.

A black screen. A single sound: “I’m a dude playin’ a dude disguised as another dude.” Then a heartbeat. Then a voice—Kirk Lazarus, still in Sgt. Lincoln Osiris makeup—whispering from inside a shipping container: The title card slams down over a new

“They still don’t know they’re in a movie… but now you will.”