Will This Performance Save Tom Cruise's Career?
If nothing else, Tropic Thunder will go down as summer 2008's greatest single incubator of distractingly hairy outcroppings. Having already been lulled into a heady 'stache trance by the marvelous things happening atop Robert Downey Jr.'s lip on a recent GMA appearance, we now present for you a scene featuring Tom Cruise's much buzzed-about cameo as Les Grossman, the furry-knuckled, sociopathic studio chief who wants his war movie delivered on time and under budget.While much has been made of whether or not this tangent into the realm of prosthetics-and-yak-hair-based comedy marked a new beginning for the faltering superstar's career—or a spectacular start to its end—there's no denying Cruise's investment in the demonic performance, as if he realized what was stake as the cameras rolled. Yes, this is truly one for the ages, with Cruise's unforgettable delivery of, "Take a big step back, and literally FUCK YOUR OWN FACE" sure to be sandwiched between the Risky Business underwear sequence and Born on the Fourth of July's climactic protest scene in future billion-year lifetime achievement award ceremony highlight reels.