Aug. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Ben Stiller's ``Tropic Thunder'' has something to offend everyone: a white actor playing a black man, a dimwitted farmhand who talks to animals and a chubby guy with uncontrollable flatulence. Not to mention a story that milks as many laughs as possible out of bloody warfare.

A gross-out comedy starring Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. as egocentric movie stars making a grandiose war epic, ``Tropic Thunder'' lampoons Hollywood cliches -- from method actors unable to distinguish roles from reality to performers who play mentally impaired characters in order to win awards.

Criticizing such a film for being offensive -- several disability groups have called for a boycott over the repeated use of ``retard'' to describe a fictional farm worker played by Stiller -- is like attacking nudists for not wearing clothes. The only pertinent question is whether the movie is funny and hits its satirical targets. More often than not, it does.

``Tropic Thunder,'' directed and co-written by Stiller, provides much-needed laughter in a summer filled with overblown comic duds like ``The Love Guru.'' Imagine Mel Brooks making ``Apocalypse Now'' with Robert De Niro, Chris Farley, Sylvester Stallone and Sean ``Diddy'' Combs.

This movie-within-a movie features two of the year's sharpest comic performances -- Downey as an intense Australian actor so dedicated to his role as a trash-talking black soldier that he undergoes pigmentation surgery, and an almost unrecognizable Tom Cruise as a chubby, bald, cutthroat producer willing to sacrifice his kidnapped star to collect insurance money.

Cruise Boogies

Downey's Kirk Lazarus -- ``I don't read the script, the script reads me'' -- is a brilliant spoof on obsessed actors who end up believing they really are the people they're portraying. Cruise, who performs a rap boogie dressed in an open-collared tuxedo shirt and suspenders, proves once and for all that Scientologists can have a sense of humor.

The movie opens with faux trailers that introduce Lazarus and his equally over-the-top co-stars: Tugg Speedman (Stiller), a one-time action hero still reeling from his disastrous Oscar bid in ``Simple Jack''; Jeff Portnoy (Black), who produces more natural gas than Russia in his raunchy comedy series ``The Fatties''; and Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson), a hip-hop star and entrepreneur whose product line includes ``Booty Sweat'' energy drinks and ``Bust-A-Nut'' candy bars.

Drug Gang

Stuck in the jungles of Southeast Asia with a pampered cast and a skyrocketing budget, eccentric British director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) decides to ditch the script and shoot ``guerilla-style'' with no crew or communication with the outside world. But the plan backfires when they run across a real-life drug gang that captures Speedman and holds him hostage.

You may not remember the plot, but you'll have a hard time forgetting some of the images, including Stiller wearing a panda's head as a hood and a naked Black strapped to the back of a pregnant water buffalo.

``Tropic Thunder'' has its share of misfires -- a stage re- enactment of ``Simple Jack'' is overdone -- and it occasionally slows to a crawl, but I haven't heard any louder laughter in a movie theater this summer.

``Tropic Thunder,'' from DreamWorks, opens today across the U.S. Rating: ***

`A Girl Cut in Two'

Claude Chabrol's ``A Girl Cut in Two'' ends with a magician appearing to saw his young assistant in half on stage. This engrossing, maze-like film isn't about magic, though, unless you count the sleight of hand used in twisted romances.

The title character is a cute TV weathergirl named Gabrielle (Ludivine Sagnier) who has an affair with Charles (Francois Berleand), a married, womanizing novelist. She's simultaneously pursued by Paul (Benoit Magimel), an emotionally disturbed young heir to a pharmaceutical fortune. The two relationships proceed on a collision course that climaxes in a violent outburst and several surprise twists.

Chabrol, a New Wave director often called the French Hitchcock, said the story was inspired by the 1906 murder of Stanford White, a famous U.S. architect killed by the millionaire husband of White's former mistress on the roof of New York's Madison Square Garden. The mistress, Evelyn Nesbit, became known as ``The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing,'' the title of a 1955 film about the case.

``A Girl Cut in Two,'' from IFC Films, opens Aug. 15 in New York. French, with English subtitles. Rating: ***

What the Stars Mean:

****          Excellent
***           Good
**            Average
*             Poor
(No stars)    Worthless

(Rick Warner is the movie critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

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Last Updated: August 13, 2008 00:01 EDT