Tropic Thunder is a movie about making a movie by not making a movie. It is a wild romp through joke-infested jungles that occasionally steps on a comedy landmine.

Director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) assembles a star studded cast of actors to grace his war movie. Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller) is the group’s action star, Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) is the drug addicted comedian, Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.) is the award-winning Australian actor, Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson) is the rabble’s rapper-turned-actor and rounding out the group is the geek Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel). During filming the actors can’t work together, can’t get their lines out, and can’t be directed at all. Facing pressure from the financial backer of the movie, Cockburn listens to Four Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte), the author of the book the movie is based on, and sends the group out into the jungle with no way out. Instead of shooting a war flick gorilla style, they end up shooting guns gorilla style.

Tropic Thunder opens with a group of fake commercials and trailers. My best guess is that it is Ben Stiller’s way of letting us get to know the characters a little better before the opening of the movie. It is kind of a cinematic prologue. The commercial is funny but the last trailer is by far the funniest of the opening sequence.

After the faux trailers, it takes a while for Tropic Thunder to regain that same level of comedy. It isn’t until the team is dropped in the jungle that the audience’s patience pays off during one of the most OH MY GOD moments I’ve seen in a long time. So stunning and surprising, it is so wrong that your laughter feels dirty, which makes it that much more hysterical.

Jack Black probably could have been replace by any Saturday Night Live cast member, past or present, without much difference in quality. Ben Stiller earned a couple of chuckles from me. Robert Downey Jr. delivers lines like “Never go full retard” so seriously, it is impossible not to laugh. Downey Jr. isn’t irreplaceable, though.