Tropic Thunder rolls in today

What’s most endearing about this comedy is that it so expertly satirizes Hollywood in the same way you and some friends would while watching A-listers congratulate themselves at the Academy Awards. And perhaps no one could do it as well as writer and director Ben Stiller, who grew up in a famous Hollywood family. Tropic Thunder stars Stiller as a pompous action jock, Jack Black as a shock comedy star, and most notoriously, Robert Downey Jr. as a multi-Oscar winning actor who goes to great lengths to morph into new characters. In this case, he darkens his skin to portray an African-American soldier. For their new film together, a Vietnam War adventure, the trio is thrust into a foreign jungle and left to their own, rather limited, devices. No one plays the empty-headed jerk like Stiller, Downey’s performance is on-the-edge comedy, and Black electrifies with his usual live wire act. Rated R. (Photo courtesy Dreamworks Pictures)