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This funny mess feels like a bunch of actor-centric comedy sketches strung together. Some of those sketches work much better than others. The weaker sketches often feel like stale leftovers from a 2001 episode of SNL. And like it happens on SNL from time to time, the guest hosts steal all the scenes from the regulars.

Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan, TRISTRAM SHANDY) is making the big-budget war picture “Tropic Thunder” in Vietnam. The troubled production stars action superstar and questionable actor Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller, ZOOLANDER). The rest of the cast includes: the award-winning method actor Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr., IRON MAN), who has undergone a controversial skin operation to play a black soldier; drug-addicted comedian Jeff Portnoy; rapper-turned-actor Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson, ROLL BOUNCE); and skinny, smart newcomer Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel, KNOCKED UP). The production is a mess and the producers are not happy. So along with Four Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte, AFFLICTION), the veteran who wrote the novel the film is based on, and pyrotechnics expert Cody (Danny McBride, PINEAPPLE EXPRESS), Cockburn takes his actors into the jungle to film gorilla-style, until they stumble upon the hideout of drug dealers.

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