(Cruise. James Cruise. And you might be?)
CAST: Tom Cruise, Jon Voight, Emmanuelle Beart, Ving Rhames, Jean Reno, Henry Czerny, Kristin Scott Thomas, Vanessa Redgrave, Emilio Estevez, Ingeborga Dapkunaite.
DIRECTOR: Brian De Palma
WARNING: Minor SPOILERS and quasi-byzantine espionage plots right up ahead...
The MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE series has a special place in my heart, much like the James Bond films. But while the Bond films are often handcuffed to the series' trademarks - so much so that daringly subversive entries like LICENCE TO KILL and QUANTUM OF SOLACE get vilified - the M:I series doesn't have as many constraints. Each film in the M:I trilogy is distinctive not just from the Bond films, but also from one another. The director of each installment left his vivid fingerprints all over the finished product. For M:I 2, John Woo invested the film with a grand, operatic atmosphere that reflected his over-the-top style. For M:I 3, J.J. Abrams brought a youthful, kinetic energy to the proceedings which made it resemble a special ALIAS episode. The best film in the trilogy, though, remains the first one directed by Brian De Palma. Chilly, methodical, and elegant, M:I seemed to be more of a suspense film interspersed with bursts of action - completely appropriate coming from a director who was often hailed as Hitchcock's successor. And that is the best way to describe M:I - as very Hitchcockian. The next two entries would emphasize the action more, but in this first outing, suspense is the name of the game, baby...
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE opens with a scene showing spy Jack (Emilio Estevez) watching a soap opera where an old guy who looks like Tom Cruise is beating the shit out of a Russian. Except it turns out to be video footage that is very real. In the next room, Grandpa Cruise is smacking the Russkie around while a beautiful woman named Claire (Emmanuelle Beart) lies bleeding on the bed - apparently dead. After sobbing like a little bitch for what feels like an eternity, the Russkie finally coughs up the info Gramps is looking for. This leads to several things happening: (1) the Russkie being dragged away by other spies, (2) Grandpa Cruise ripping off his mask to reveal... a normal-looking Tom Cruise who is named Ethan in this flick, and (3) Claire being revived out of her coma by Ethan. Obviously, there's some history between Ethan and Claire, judging from their mutual eye-fucking.
We cut to Prague, where the team has assembled for their next assignment. In addition to Ethan, Jack, and Claire we also have: (1) Jim (Jon Voight), the leader of the group and Claire's husband; (2) Sarah (Kristin Scott Thomas), a frostily pretty Brit who (inexplicably) drools over Jack's ass; (3) and Hannah (Ingeborga Dapkunaite), a sunny German (now there's an oxymoron) who gently tolerates her whackjob team members. Turns out that their next objective is to flush out a mole named Alexander Golitsyn (Marcel Iures), who is posing as an attache at the U.S. Consulate in Prague. Evidently, Golitsyn plans to steal and sell a Top Secret list that reveals the identities of covert agents across Europe. Jim's bosses think that Golitsyn plans to sell the list to the mysterious "Max" - a shadowy arms dealer whose identity is a mystery. Hence the adjectives "mysterious" and "shadowy." Duh.
The team's job is to tail Golitsyn and witness the "sale" - then swoop in. For their part, the team-mates seem to be excited about working together on this task, as evidenced by their light-hearted jibbing of one another in that special manner of people familiar with one another. They're practically like the fucking Brady Bunch of Espionage. This can only mean two things: (1) their positive attitude will result in mission success, or (2) their positive attitude will be cruelly reversed when the mission goes to shit and nearly all of them are killed. Those of you expecting # 1 to be the case have a lot to learn about dramatic conflict.
Sure enough, the mission - to put it delicately - turns into a cluster-fuck. For starters, the following happens: (1) Jack gets his allegedly cute ass speared in the consulate's elavator shaft, (2) Jim gets shot on a bridge and plummets into the icy river below, (3) Hannah and Claire explode along with the transport vehicle, and (4) Sarah gets gutted by the same shadowy assasin/buyer that (5) guts Golitsyn. This leaves Ethan as the only survivor. If you're guessing that this is one of those scenarios that can easily be misconstrued for the negative, and that Ethan's employer will choose to spin the whole thing in such a way that it appears he's less of an innocent survivor and more of a guilty perpetrator - then do me a favor and tell me what the winning Lotto numbers are for next week.
And so it goes... when a shell-shocked Ethan arranges to come in and meet with his superior, Kittridge (Henry Czerny), the latter pretty much treats him the same way the rich snobs from PRETTY IN PINK treated Molly Ringwald - like something smelly he stepped in. Kittridge tells Ethan that the entire mission was staged to flush out a mole within IMF and - interestingly enough - only he survived. How very, very intriguing. Seeing the writing on the wall - and the "You So Dead" look on Kittridge's face - Ethan goes all MacGyver and uses two sticks of gum to blow out a wall of the restaurant they're in. Then he's out in the night and running for his life. And Kittridge is so pissed off that the blast ruffled his perfect coif that he picks up the phone and gets Ethan placed on the "Disavowed" list, which ensures that no other spy will eat lunch with Ethan in the Agency cafeteria. And I thought high school was brutal.
Retreating back to their operational base in a nondescript flat, Ethan contrives to flush out the killer by trying to meet with Max. In a fortuitous turn of events, it also turns out that Claire didn't die in the car explosion, after all. She walked away in time to avoid the detonation that killed Hannah, and when Claire turns up at the flat, Ethan basically hugs her with joy. Oh.... wait. Looks like he was actually accusing her of being a spy and slammed her into the bed. My bad. Soon, though, Claire manages to convince him that she's a shocked by the ambush as he was. And just like that, our lone wolf has a sidekick. But, as opined in ABOUT A BOY, you have to have more than two. So our hero and heroine recruite the following fellow disavowed folks: (1) Luther (Ving Rhames), a giant so gentle and affable you have to wonder if he truly is disavowed - or just pretending to be so he can be "edgy"; and (2) Krieger (Jean Reno), a jerk so combative and annoying you have to wonder if the disavowed list is enough of a punishment. What about an execution?
Using the nascent technology of the internet, as well as biblical scripture, Ethan and Claire contact Max and arrange a meet with him. Or "her," as Ethan soon discovers. "Max" must be short for Maxine, because our enigmatic arms dealer is actually a handsomely elegant and statuesquely alluring brunette who looks eerily like Vanessa Redgrave. Playful and seductive, Max toys with Ethan in a surprisingly erotic scene that pre-figures the current societal fascination with "cougars." And those of you thinking I'm talking about jungle cats need to get out a little more. Anyway, Ethan returns Max's flirtation, saying that he'll get her the list she wants - as long as she brings his team's killer to the switch. Max grins with lascivious delight at this, and if Ethan was a roast beef sandwich, she would have ripped into him right then and there.
The rest of M:I showcases Ethan and his new team's efforts to: (1) break into CIA Headquarters in Langley, VA to steal the list, (2) sell the list to Max and her cohorts, while (3) trying to stay ahead of Kittridge and his cohorts. Allow me to share this rather unsurprising little nugget of wisdom: nothing is what it seems. And the French, ahem, can't be trusted.
BUT, SERIOUSLY: Watching MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE is like going back to a time that isn't really that long ago - but feels that way in cinematic terms. I'm referring to a time when films still concerned themselves with good old-fashioned storytelling and weren't completely concerned with the visual razzle-dazzle and limited attention spans. While M:I certainly has some great action set-pieces, what makes it a very good film is that these scene all hang on a narrative that values suspense, mystery, and rising tension. It's not like DIE HARD 4, which seemed like a nonsensical series of explosions. This movie was made in 1996, which really isn't all that long ago in the big scheme of things. However, if you were to compare today's action films with the ones from the mid-90's, I think you'd find a marked difference. Which makes me appreciate M:I's gracefully elegant execution all the more.
As usual, Tom Cruise is solid as Ethan Hunt - and he gets able support from the supporting cast around him. The standouts are Jon Voight, Henry Czerny, Kristin Scott Thomas, and - especially - Vanessa Redgrave. Voight is appropriately ambiguous and stoic, while Czerny is ice-cold perfection as Hunt's pursuer. Kristin Scott-Thomas makes the most of her small role as one of Ethan's murdered colleagues. Coolly beautiful with a composed demeanor to match, Scott-Thomas is the epitome of the complex ice princess - a frosty surface hiding fire beneath. When she's onscreen your eyes are on her and her alone.
But Vanessa Redgrave turns in the most memorable performance as Max. In her hands, the character is sexy, alluring, intelligent, playful, and endlessly intriguing. In fact, Redgrave is so good that she overshadows the female lead, Emmanuelle Beart, who does okay, but whose character is just not as compelling as Max - or even Sarah. In fact, the emotional core of the film is supposed to be the would-be love triangle between Ethan, Claire, and Jim. Unfortunately, this thread is not developed fully. Fortunately, the suspenseful plot and breath-taking action more than make up for that small emotional void. And, no, the plot isn't confusing - as some have complained. You just have to pay attention. It actually makes perfect sense.
Bottom line: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE is a terrific spy thriller that manages to thrill without insulting the intelligence of the audience or hurting their eyes with too much action. The action scenes are elegant and fluid and do not seem gratuitous, and credit must be given to director Brian De Palma for bringing the events of the script to life with a distinctively Hitchcockian flair that the Master himself would have been proud of.
