Tropic Thunder (2008)

"Tropic Thunder" certainly is the busiest action-comedy-spoof in ages. Aping Hollywood egos and serious war films such as "Platoon" and "Apocalypse Now," it has a cast and budget that rivals those two classics plus a dozen more epics.

Star, director and co-writer Ben Stiller is Tugg Speedman, an action film star on a career nosedive after he starred in an Oscar hopeful about a "retard" titled "Simple Jack" that not only crashed and burned, it seemingly offended half the known world. Speedman is now starring as Four Leaf Tayback in "Tropic Thunder, a hellish take on the real Tayback's experience in Vietnam. The film has a first-time Brit director (Steve Coogan), two wild co-stars -- an Australian method actor named Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.) who's made up in black face, and a comedic drug addict (Black Jack) trying to go serious. Both are gods in their own minds. But the cast soon find themselves hunted by real Southeast Asia killers in a real war after a funny mix up kills the director.

The film is wildly offensive and all over-the-map, not only making fun of on-set ego fights and productions, but zipping back and forth to Hollywood to dig at a kiss ass agent (Matthew McConaughey) and an immoral studio executive (Tom Cruise). But nearly every dig feels true (even if it isn't), from the self-importance of film actors and Hollywood in general to the way whites would like to think they know how it is to be African-American. Alas, Black returns to full Tasmanian wild-eyed devil mode, while Stiller continues his happy "loser" character he's played to death for for the past decade. The clear champs are Cruise and Downey. Both under heavy make up, Cruise looks like he's having the time of his life, while good ol' Iron Man continues to show he's the best actor of his generation. Downey's every line is classic.

The film is a bit too hectic to win absolute love, and the best comedic bit is the quickest and most quiet. In a spoof trailer at the film's opening, Downey as Lazarus and Tobey Maguire as Tobey Maguire play monks in love, fondling each others' ... rosary beads. Hilarious. B