Tom Cruise has a cameo (well, it’s almost five minutes long, so I guess it’s more than a cameo) in the Ben Stiller comedy “Tropic Thunder”, playing the bald, overweight, and cold-blooded owner of a talent agency film studio that handles the career of Stiller’s action hero character. It’s supposed to be Tom Cruise’s best work in a long, long time, pretty much because Cruise is playing against type. Can you imagine Cruise doing a serious movie where he’s overweight, bald, and calling people “playa” as hip hop music play in the background?

Here’s that 5-minute appearance by Cruise in “Tropic Thunder” that someone put up on YouTube. Obviously this thing is going to get pulled faster than you can say, “Run, Katie Holmes, run!”, but in the meantime, it sure is oddly brilliant, ain’t it? Easily the Cruister’s best work since, well, he and Goose made out in the cockpit of their Tomcats in “Top Gun”. What, you didn’t see that? It was in the Director’s Cut.