Ben Stiller and Tom Cruise Make Laughter Their 'Mission'
(2000)
In MTV Movie Awards history, no actor has proved more game from year to year
for overall outlandishness than Ben Stiller. And in 2000, he offered
his finest send-up yet, playing a Tom Cruise stuntman/creepy
... moreimpersonator named Tom Crooz alongside the real-life man himself and director
John Woo on the set of "Mission: Impossible II." Stiller's dead-on cocky
smile and "ain't I great" mannerisms still induce belly laughs, as does the
underlying joke that his character is both an asset to Cruise and an unstable
hanger-on. But what makes this bit hold up, and seem almost ironically
prescient, is the knowledge that a few short years later, Tom-Tom would start
behaving in ways that made people genuinely question his sanity.