Ben Stiller is a successful actor who regularly tries his hand at writing, directing and producing. He is also married to an actress, and the son of two actors. Needless to say therefore that Stiller has seen Hollywood from a series of (unflattering) angles. And for his new film, Tropic Thunder he makes full use of his knowledge for the benefit of our entertainment, turning it into a pastiche trapped in the body of an action flick.

I’ll be unequivocal: Tropic Thunder is a hoot. It starts by establishing its main characters through a series of (unfortunately fake) movie trailers. This means Stiller can drop the viewer right into the thick of the action from the very start of the film and artfully derail it from there.

Stiller not only takes a swing at pretty much every Vietnam project ever made (including, but not limited to the Tour of Duty TV-series, the First blood films, Rescue Dawn, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now and even Heart of Darkness), but at the entire Hollywood machine. Nothing and nobody is spared. Tropic Thunder contains arty-farty directors, ridiculously demanding movie stars, overindulging managers, underpaid crew, overpaid PAs; you name it and Stiller pokes fun of it. One of the highlights is Tom Cruise portraying what can only be Joel Silver, with no holds barred.

A shtick like that could get really old really fast, but it works because Stiller does it so well. He never overplays his hand (although Jack Black’s performance almost spins out of control) and expertly juggles the variety of the many subjects he is spoofing. One example would be the head which appears in a pivotal scene and is clearly made of rubber, underscoring the point Stiller makes about overeager stunt-coordinators and FX-specialists running away with a film and sacrificing its credibility.

As hilarious as Tropic Thunder is on its own merit, the film is entirely hi-jacked (and then thrown into a truck and driven off for that matter) by Robert Downey Jr.’s superb performance. Downey Jr. plays Kirk Lazarus, an actor so “method” that he undergoes special pigmentation treatment so he can play a black man. Lazarus sits up and begs for the Oscar the same way Angelina Jolie did in “A mighty heart”. And through Downey Jr. Stiller makes a point about racial politics in Hollywood that can not be misunderstood. As one of Lazarus’s fellow actors puts it: The only decent part for a black man in years, and they give it to a white guy.

The irony is that it takes an Oscar calibre actor such as Robert Downey Jr. to pull this off. In the hands of anyone less capable this part would have deteriorated into an over-eager, hysterical for al the wrong reasons, self indulgent performance on the wrong side of camp.

With Tropic Thunder, Ben Stiller made a satire on acting, filmmaking, blockbusters and whatever things Hollywood he felt were in need of a good thrashing (and let’s face is: nowadays that would be most things Hollywood). The fact that he managed to make a delightfully watchable movie from his good intentions (rather than merely a mediocre film on a sympathetic subject) not only does him credit but makes this film a recommendation for movie buffs, film school students and action-pic admirers alike.