"I'm the dude playin' the dude disguised as another dude"

That's three layers of dude. Four, really. There's the real (and Caucasian and American) Robert Downey Jr., notoriously a drug addict and fine actor before becoming an Avenger. Here, he plays a critically-acclaimed actor transitioning to a big-budget picture with an irregular ensemble cast who has a crisis of identity in the middle of the Golden Triangle, one of the two major centers of opium production in the world. Quite self-referential already, but that's just one dude.

The second dude is five-time Academy Award winner Kirk Lazarus. Allegedly based on the likes of Russell Crowe, Daniel Day-Lewis and Colin Farrell, I'd buy that if the character had remained Irish as reportedly originally written or if Kiwi-born Aussie Crowe were a trained method actor. But, no. The distinctly-named Aussie Lazarus plays a joke of a heavily-made up method actor previously acclaimed for a gay romance co-starring Jake Gyllenhaal's "Brother" Tobey Maguire. Partly a joke on themselves here, of Downey and Maguire's roles in "Wonder Boys" (2000), the larger target seems to be Heath Ledger, although it's little wonder if that were downplayed after Ledger's death subsequent to his role as the Joker in "The Dark Knight" (2008). Either way, Lazarus relentlessly mocking Ben Stiller's Tugg Speedman in "Tropic Thunder," Downey lost the Oscar to the guy he made fun of, in reality and in the movie.

Then, the third dude, there's the character in which the white Lazarus supposedly had pigmentation alteration surgery to play, the African-American Staff Sergeant Lincoln Osiris of the Vietnam War. Interesting name that, too, Lincoln Osiris--seemingly combing those of the emancipating 16th U.S. president and the green-skinned Ancient Egyptian god associated with surgical-like mummy wrapping and resurrection (like the biblical "Lazarus"), among other things. Even as the production for the film-within-the-film breaks down, Lazarus fails to fully break from his Osiris character much to the annoyance of real African-American Brandon T. Jackson's character and co-star Alpa Chino (and the joke continued in the actual DVD commentary).

Fourth, last and most brief of the dudes is the character Lazarus, still in character as Osiris, plays in a "real-life" ploy by assuming, or culturally appropriating, one might say, the identity of a Southeast Asian rice-and-poppy farmer--y'know, for "diversification." The faux-outraged Twitterati should count their lucky stars that the method actor didn't have the time or inclination to go full Brando yellowface in "The Teahouse of the August Moon" (1956) with this one. The most questionable aspect of the constructions of the dudes here, as I see it, being that the real "Tropic Thunder," indeed, comes to reflect in its rah-rah American patriotism for invasion of the East that it simultaneously mocks with its inner Vietnam War movie. It's hypocritical, but no worse than "Iron Man" (2008)--both being simplistic escapism during the War on Terror involving the other of the two major opium production centers in the world, Afghanistan. Too bad, too, as these "Simple Jack"-appreciating drug traffickers are the only surrogate for us, the audience, that we get here. I mean, really, shouldn't we at least be represented as drug addicts. We don't make the stuff; we just consume it. Anyways, point is, Downey is terrific in the multi-layered part. It's hard to think of another actor, including today's "Dolittle" Downey, who could've pulled it off... maybe Ledger.

As for the rest of "Tropic Thunder," it's not bad, either. We got actors playing phony actors in a phony movie based on a phony book written by a phony veteran. It's funny seeing Nick Nolte channeling Robert Shaw in "Jaws" (1975) in a part that makes me wonder about another role Nolte had in the ensemble cast of Terrence Malick's "The Thin Red Line" (1998), although the war-film parody here mostly targets "Apocalypse Now" (1979), "Platoon" (1986) and "Saving Private Ryan" (1998) and their imitators. Jack Black is spot on, too, as a John Belushi or Chris Farley type of a drug-abusing portly comic, Black's own career perhaps threatening to teeter towards the direction of such drivel as "The Fatties: Fart 2," although that trailer gag is clearly a spot-on spoof of Eddie Murphy's "Nutty Professor" abominations.

On the other hand, reportedly, they couldn't get an actual rapper, or the one they first wanted, for the Alpa Chino part, but as played by Jackson, it's another on-the-mark jab at a cultural tendency that would seem more potentially offensive than anything in the albeit politically-incorrect "Tropic Thunder," which is to say the hyper-masculine, "Al Pacino" gangster image of rappers. This is another great, if less, layered character, of the rapper-turned-actor and continued product-placement personality whose overcompensating façade is an act concealing a homosexual who here gets into a literal slap fight. Hilarious even if arguably trading one stereotype in for something of another one (although, perhaps importantly, he doesn't start the slapping).

Meanwhile, there's an inexperienced director reportedly based on that of the ill-fated "The Island of Dr. Moreau" (1996) that broke down under the pressure of doubled method acting primadonnas, Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer, an early against-type supporting performance from Matthew McConaughey as an agent, and Tom Cruise's glorious portrayal of Les Grossman, who could probably be based on various fat-suited, bald-capped, foul-mouthed and more or less gross producers and studio heads--take your pick. Next to the fellow-Scientology-confounding "Magnolia" (1999), it may be the best thing Cruise has ever done on screen. Seriously, there should've been two acting Oscar nominations here, as there were Golden Globe ones. I assume Cruise didn't make the connection to his religion, or cult, but it hardly matters.

As for the nominal lead, Ben Stiller's schtick as Tugg Speedman is palatable enough, I suppose, when supported as well as it is here in a picture he directed and co-wrote. But, the tug is more for his comedic personality than an acting performance. From what I've read, though, Stiller knew this. The original plan, I'm told, being to cast Keanu Reeves in the part, which would've been brilliant. He is the "Speed" man, after all. Moreover, Reeves has, or at least he used to, a reputation of supposedly being stupid, as well as allegedly a bad actor. The Sylvester Stallone bad rap of another generation. I recently reviewed the documentary "Side by Side" (2012) and that the man is able to carry on intelligent interviews regarding the digital revolution in cinema is enough to convince me otherwise as far there being a mind at work there, and I appreciate enough of his filmography, but there's no denying some of his roles have type cast him as the idiot. We're talking about the "Bill & Ted" dude here. This would've added a whole other layer to the play-within-the-play and another of the films-within-the-film, "Simple Jack." It would've been closer to an on-the-nose parody of Sean Penn's "I Am Sam" (2001), too, both actors coming up at about the same time, including both being considered for the time-traveling slacker flick.

But, the powers that be insisted on a bankable type-casted comedian for a lead in a comedy--Reeves, apparently, being too much of an action star by this point. Funny that, the studio of the outer movie detrimentally interfering with the movie exactly like (well, maybe not exactly like) the inner studio did with its "Tropic Thunder." Small wonder the picture was made and cast as well as it was at all, especially Downey, but also Cruise and the others mentioned, to hold up the mirror for its own industry to be satirized. Combined with the plethora of filmic references, it's a fun comedy for those who love the dream factory despite of or flaws an' all.