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Parents' Guide to

Tropic Thunder

By Sandie Angulo Chen, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 17+

Showbiz satire is witty, violent, controversial.

Movie R 2008 111 minutes
Tropic Thunder Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

age 15+

Based on 30 parent reviews

age 18+

Lewd, Nudity, Language NOT FOR KIDS

Not sure why CSM said there wasn’t much sexual content. There is a fully nude women early in the movie. Also women with very tiny bikinis and bare butt and breasts as women dance around poles. Very vulgar! And bad language and violence.

This title has:

Too much violence
Too much sex
Too much swearing
1 person found this helpful.
age 17+

Pause, there is nudity!

I was about ten minutes into the movie and my husband and I always make sure to avoid nudity and sexual content at all costs but there was a pornographic magazine that a man is looking at and that it shows completely naked women for only a few seconds but it is definitely there. We turned the movie off right then and there. Commonsense media you may want to place this in the reviews!

This title has:

Too much sex
1 person found this helpful.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (30 ):
Kids say (72 ):

Writer-director-producer Stiller pokes witty fun at self-absorbed actors and greedy studios in this send-up of action-packed war dramas. Although it's darker and more violent than the much-seen trailer suggests, Tropic Thunder is bitingly funny and incredibly intelligent. Downey is especially brilliant as "the dude playing the dude disguised as another dude" -- a Method actor so caught up in the part he doesn't drop character between shots. Black has less to do as a junkie lowbrow comic, but Baruchel and Johnson shine as, respectively, the newcomer actor who actually read the entire script and the diversified rapper adding acting to his many revenue streams. It's remarkable that Stiller, unlike many actors who direct themselves, resisted the opportunity to focus on himself and instead allowed his ensemble of whip-smart actors with impeccable comedic timing to do their thing.

In a fabulous piece scenery chewing, a nearly unrecognizable Tom Cruise straps on a bald cap and a hairy fat suit to play repulsive studio head Les Grossman, the kind of obscenity-spewing tycoon who would sell his mother's soul to Satan for higher box-office grosses. He even tries to convince Speedman's loyal agent (Matthew McConaughey, who for once keeps his shirt on) to let Speedman die at the heroin gang's hands in exchange for a personal jet. Cruise and Downey are the hilarious highlights in one of this year's funniest films.

Movie Details

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