Tropic Thunder

**** - I’ve always found Ben Stiller’s work to be kind of hit-or-miss. I love “The Cable Guy” and a number of his other films are kind of funny, but movies like “Zoolander” and “Dodgeball” which have no redeeming qualities whatsoever make me reconsider his worth. I’m also convinced that Robert Downey Jr. could take a dump on a film strip and receive extreme critical praise for it due to his ‘method acting’ habits, troubled past, and rebellious off-screen persona. I think he is highly overrated in general, although I do admit he was good in “Sherlock Holmes” and can pull off pretty much any accent. “Tropic Thunder” not only was co-written and directed by Stiller, and co-stars Stiller and Downey Jr., but also has the highly polarizing Jack Black as a major player, and features washed-up drunk Nick Nolte, unfunny comedian/actor Danny McBride, and frequent Judd Apatow collaborator Jay Baruchel. That’s all a recipe for potential disaster, but it actually turned out to be an extremely funny movie for the most part, due largely to its tendency to satirize all the clichés that are brought in as baggage by the various participants. Oh, and Tom Cruise also has role in this (which I barely recognized him in), and he is actually very funny and extraordinarily foul-mouthed. He may be the highlight of the film, despite his odd dance sequence that runs over the closing credits.