If any of you are fans of German master-wild-man filmmaker Werner Herzog, or the Apocalypse Now documentary Hearts of Darkness, this is about as must see as you can get with DVD extras. I'm not sure where the other person on IMDb saw it, but it's available on the unrated director's cut DVD of Tropic Thunder and it makes the extra disc worth every penny. Along with the added "deleted scenes" called "Dispatches from the Edge of Madness", Rain of Madness chronicles the sorrowful story of Steve Coogan's hapless director character Damien Cogburn, who met his fate at a landmine in the middle of the jungle with his unaware actors. We see the madness that was the making of the movie "Tropic Thunder" from the perspective of Jan Jurgen- the Herzog imitation done brilliantly cheaply by co-writer Justin Theroux- who narrates and occasionally looks at a video like said landmine explosion like it's the footage of Grizzly Man Herzog just couldn't show us delicate viewers.
It's mostly brilliant improv, with maybe one or two seconds that aren't. Some of the best bits come with the Diva-style attitude of Tug Speedman (Stiller) as he wont leave his trailer, makes hazardous line changes to his baffled director, and then does a tasteless imitation of his 'real-life' character Four Leaf Tayback (Nolte) with the two-hand hook appendages. But a lot of the credit must go to Coogan- his fans will die watching him in some of these bits- who improvs his way through some ridiculous bits; even more-so than during the movie. And even better in the 'Dispatches' section on the DVD is a scene where Downey Jr as Kirk Lazarus "in character" as Osiris goes to the "family" of Osiris' and has his fake family go through torture, exorcisms, and a "Grape soda technological workshop" or whatever, which had me literally crying laughing. It is, basically, one of the funniest DVD extras ever.
It's mostly brilliant improv, with maybe one or two seconds that aren't. Some of the best bits come with the Diva-style attitude of Tug Speedman (Stiller) as he wont leave his trailer, makes hazardous line changes to his baffled director, and then does a tasteless imitation of his 'real-life' character Four Leaf Tayback (Nolte) with the two-hand hook appendages. But a lot of the credit must go to Coogan- his fans will die watching him in some of these bits- who improvs his way through some ridiculous bits; even more-so than during the movie. And even better in the 'Dispatches' section on the DVD is a scene where Downey Jr as Kirk Lazarus "in character" as Osiris goes to the "family" of Osiris' and has his fake family go through torture, exorcisms, and a "Grape soda technological workshop" or whatever, which had me literally crying laughing. It is, basically, one of the funniest DVD extras ever.