You can pick out a Tom Cruise vehicle with very little effort. If the film is based in real life situations, he tends to be the hero (or the anti-hero). If its an action flick, hes humanitys only hope. The point is that Cruises films are very Tom-centric, and the diminutive actor tends to take ego-boosting roles. More often than not, they involve some scowling, some moral conflict and a whole lot of running, which has been lampooned so hard for so long its not even worth making a joke about here. Yet then there was Tropic Thunder, and Tom was simply not himself. Not that he was ill or anything, but he was balding, fat, sweary and just an awful, awful human being. Usually, that might resemble all the traits of a midlife crisis, but not here. Here, Cruise was super-producer Les Grossman, and hot damn, he was hilarious. Terrorising agents, directors, lackies and actors, Cruises presence was supposed to be a cameo, yet it almost ended up overshadowing the whole film. After all, if youre going to yell at a terrorist leader to f**k his own face, youve got to accept that some of the spotlight is going to fall on you. But again, this wasnt a bad thing Cruise was glorious, and picked up a well-deserved Golden Globe Supporting Actor nomination.