Tropic Thunder

Opening August 15th

Ben Stiller bites the toxic Hollywood hand that feeds him in a sidesplitting spoof of the movie business. Stiller — talk about a heroic bout of multitasking — directs and stars in a screenplay he wrote with Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen (not Joel's brother). The plot brings together three spoiled, massively overpaid actors making a dead—serious Vietnam movie for which they are absurdly unsuited. Stiller's Tug Speedman desperately wants respect as an actor. Ditto Jack Black as Jeff "Fats" Portnoy, a junkie best known for multiple comedy roles in which he farts repeatedly. Then there's Robert Downey Jr. as Kirk Lazarus, a white Aussie multi—Oscar winner who thinks he's extending his range by having his skin surgically pigmented to play an African—American officer. Downey is flat—out hilarious, and those who protest the idea of the character are totally missing the comic point. The big surprise is an unbilled cameo by an uproarious Tom Cruise, in a fat suit and a bald cap, playing a studio boss with a mouth that's almost as foul as the real thing. To hear him curse his assistant (Bill Hader) as a "nutless monkey" before breaking into a happy dance is a thing of gross beauty. So's the movie. Stiller does summer comedy a huge favor by crafting just the right kind of laugh riot, the smart, bruising kind in which the laughs, aptly, stick in the throat.

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