Review: Tropic Thunder

Co-writer-director Stiller's inventive screenplay pitches the egotistical leads into the film-within-a-film Tropic Thunder. Billed as "the most expensive war movie ever made", it is an Apocalypse Now-style Vietnam War epic directed by unstable Englishman Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan), whose inability to cope with his

actors' clashing egos has taken the film far over budget and threatens its closure.

In a switch of direction, the stars are dumped in the jungle with hidden cameras following them and told to get on with the movie. Which they do, more or less, until they run into dangerous real-life drug-dealing guerrillas.

Stiller is at his best, creating an unforgettable comic character in Simple Jack. And he scores a treble, too. The screenplay cruelly but accurately mocks actors and Vietnam War movies while his direction gets the best out of Black who, as usual, goes over the top but this time in character.

In an exemplary cast, Nick Nolte, raddled and addled as the author of the book on which the film-within-a-film is based, is first rate, while (and do not read further if you want to savour a splendid surprise) an unrecognisable Tom Cruise, bald and hairy-chested, is hilarious as a foul-mouthed studio head.

This action-and-explosion-filled comedy does not just bite the hand - it chews the fingers right off in a torrent of laughter.