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Mission: Impossible

De Palma builds a blockbuster

1996

Review: February 16, 2007

Director: Brian De Palma

Starring: Tom Cruise, Jon Voight, Emmanuelle Béart, Jean Reno, Ving Rhames

Probably a good idea, but not urgent.

THE SETUP:

First film in a spy series built off the famous TV show.

DISCUSSION:

I recall liking this film very much when it came out, and respecting Tom Cruise’s decision to get Brian De Palma to guide it his way. I liked its complexity, and the pure De Palma-ness of its two major action setpieces, and this was even before I became a full-on De Palma worshipper. So, as part of my drive to re-see all the De Palma films now that I am a little more aware of him as an artist, I was eager to revisit this one and see how well or awkwardly it fits into his canon.

It is, thankfully, a very, if not totally, De Palma film. The movie opens with an interrogation scene in a Russian hotel room. A woman is lying seemingly dead on a bed. This foxy Russian thug with a big mustache and a cigar is interrogating this guy, trying to get a name from him. Some of the De Palma touches that are in your face, but you still might not notice is that we are watching this whole scene on a video screen, and the entire scene, continuing De Palma’s pet theme of the ways in which video / movie images can decieve, breaks apart to reveal that it is all false: this break occuring at the moment we switch from watching the video screen to watching the live action. The room that we didn’t know was a set on a soundstage [i.e. like a movie set] breaks apart and we discover that it is right next to the surveillance room where we were watching the video screen. The Russian reveals his face to be a mask [in a move that I believe I read was thought up by De Palma and has become a hallmark of the entire series], and they run back in to save Emmanelle Beart as Claire, who has taken a drug to make her appear dead, and they have to wake her up before she actually dies. This sort of thing is very De Palma, and I believe one of the things that makes him great and yet hampers his success: you have to put together what WAS happening AFTER it has finished happening. This means that the films keep you mentally engaged [or you turn off entirely and are left cold by the movie], but the excitement of sitting there watching the scene unfold is often diminished. This is one of the things I believe turned everyone off about The Black Dahlia; a large part of the pleasure of the film only occurs AFTER you have left the theater and are putting the whole thing back together in your head. The problem for most viewers is, however, that they get lost when not understanding what’s going on in the story, and eventually give up on the film altogether. This led many critics to label it as lazy and bloated when it is in fact as tight as a popcorn fart and there is not one lazy frame in it. But anyway, the opener is over and we move into an overblown, ostensatious title sequence, and OH how I love overblown, ostentatious title sequences. This is also one of three places in the entire film when the classic Mission: Impossible theme is heard.

We then get Jon Voight as Jim Phelps, hero of the TV show, receiving a mission on a videotape. You’ll notice that De Palma’s credit appears over the puff of smoke the tape emits as it self-destructs. Then we’re introduced to the team, who I won’t even bother to go into because they’re all about to die. You do notice that they are all introduced equally, with emphasis on conveying their names [although Cruise is the obvious star], so you are at least lent the impression that they are going to matter. So whatever, there’s this big opening scene where they have to steal a list of operatives, and they’re all scattered all over this huge party. One of the things I appreciate about this scene compared to other spy movies is that here sometimes technology just doesn’t work, the way sometimes technology just doesn’t work in real life, and we get a sense of how nimbly the agents must be prepared to improvise at the drop of a hat. In here one also notes this fabulous [and oh-so-De Palma] cutaway set with elevator, allowing us to follow the locations of various parties as they are concealed behind a door or wall just inches from each other.

Anyway, all of the agents save Ethan Hunt [Cruise] are killed, in a good sequence where he runs around, reaching each one just a second or two too late, including Jim Phelps, who the movie has set up as being an admired mentor of Hunt’s. So Hunt is shitting a brick, and calls headquarters, being surprised that his superior is there in Prague. He meets him in a restaurant with large fish tanks [that have no fish in them] and learns that the whole operation was to ferret out a mole in their operation, and since Hunt survived, it looks like he’s the mole. Realizing that he has been framed, Hunt uses his explosive chewing gum [one of the gadgets he got earlier] and makes a visually spectacular escape against a backdrop of cascading blue water and broken glass. That’s another thing I like about De Palma: he knows how to make what could be an otherwise routine action sequence visually and viscerally satisfying by adding some visually striking element.

So let’s stop for a moment and reassess: This is the first movie in a series adapted from a TV show, and the main character of that TV show is killed off in the first 30 minutes. The focus has shifted to another character, but that character becomes the enemy of the agency that was the hero agency of the TV show. An entire team of agents’ characters [with some name actors among them] is set up, and almost immediately killed. So De Palma and the writers are obviously going to great pains to remove the viewer as far as possible from what they might expect, based on their knowledge of the TV show.

So Ethan goes back to the arranged meeting point, where he was supposed to meet up with his other agents after the job, and accesses the Internet. It’s a little charming now to see this super high-tech secret agent looking at a screen that says “Accessing Internet.” He only has one clue, that the person who wanted the list they were sent after is named Max and it was referred to as Job 314, so he sends a bunch of emails using random related addresses, hoping one of them turns out to be Max’s email. I also really appreciate the simple, non-tech straightforwardness of that. He falls asleep and has a vision of Phelps coming in, with one notable very bloody outstretched hand. But it’s actually Claire, Phelp’s wife, played by the absolutely gorgeous Emmanuelle Beart. She claims not to know that the rest of the team was dead, she just showed up because it’s 4am and that’s when they said they’d all meet. You may or may not notice that soon after she says she showed up because it’s 4am, we hear four chimes of the clock on the soundtrack. It’s one of those little touches that mark De Palma as a very careful filmmaker: this way he confirms that it is in fact 4am and expresses that this is part of why Ethan lets down his guard and trusts that she’s telling the truth. So soon Ethan and Claire are allied in discovering who set up Ethan and killed her husband.

Blah, blah, after a visit to Vanessa Redgrave as Max, Ethan arranges to steal the real list [the other one was a decoy] from CIA headquarters in Langley, which they will do in the first of the two major setpieces of the film. This involves this room that only one man has access to, that is sensitive to changes in temperature, sounds above that of a whisper, and has a floor that can detect the slightest bit of pressure—a sensitivity that is wonderfully illustrated with an introductory sequence that ends with a drop of water falling on a panel of the bright white floor, causing it to turn deep red. I just can’t get enough of clear, straightforward visual information!

So, the heist. After Beart sickens the guy with the one key to the room [in an amusingly clever fashion], Cruise drops into the room via cable, held by Jean Reno as Franz, in the air duct above the room. The brilliant white floor, broken by a black spider-web pattern, is visually striking on its own, and indicates that SOMEONE has seen 2001. Cruise hangs suspended in air, downloading the list, but then the classic De Palma suspense tropes start: behind Franz we see a rat approaching through the air duct. This introduction of a relatively random, everyday element that can totally screw all the high-tech plans up is not unique to De Palma, but is something he uses a lot, and to great effect [I also love the cat batting at the long surveillance camera in Femme Fatale]. So Franz almost drops Cruise, who hangs an inch from the floor—and then has to worry about a drop of sweat slowly sliding across his eyeglasses, another of these everyday elements that can throw everything to hell, and flat-out classic De Palma suspense. The resolution to the bead of sweat situation is quite disappointing and a bit of a cheat, but the rest of the sequence is so electrifying you can forgive them this little fudge. So Cruise gets the list, zooms up into the ceiling, and everything is pretty much resolved when another random element almost screws everything up—Franz’s knife falls to the floor [in a series of shots that make beautiful use of the textures of the shiny black (CGI) knife against the brilliant white and black spider-web pattern of the room.

Okay, so let’s step back and appreciate this marvelous sequence. First of all, it is visually stunning. The room itself is visually fascinating, no more so than when it changes from its brilliant white to shiny black at the disarming of the security measures [see comparison above], with the black spider-web pattern on the floor creating a reductive visual pattern that De Palma will set the black-clad figure of Cruise against. Then there is the simple visual interest of Cruise suspended in air, performing balletic movements against the silence [no music] that pervades the scene. De Palma knows that a simple striking visual can in itself be exciting and do the hard work of making a scene engaging. Then we have the introduction of the three random elements, each of which can be admired—especially the bead of sweat—for just how very ordinary they are, and the tension created by the idea that these very high-tech best-laid plans might be undone by something so simple. In many thrillers the heroes’ plans are threatened by the presence of an enemy guard or a personal interaction that drives the plot, so it’s refreshing and diabolically clever [if not an entirely new idea] that everything can be undone by something as simple as a rat or bead of sweat. And finally, the knife falling is both visually stunning and causes us to have a last gasp of tension with the idea that our heroes will fail at the last moment. The knife sticks straight down into the desk one moment after the alarms have been deactivated, showily ending the sequence with a heavy thud that breaks the silence we’ve experienced over the past few minutes, and also provides a potent visual symbol of the simple power of Hunt’s genius. The entire sequence is just flat-out fucking genius. Compare this to the bridge sequence in Mission: Impossible 3, which strives to simply overwhelm the viewer with the complexity of all the trucks and cars and helicopters missiles and guns and explosions. Here you have visual interest, thematic coherence, ingenious suspense, and an overall shape and construction that is guided by a keen intelligence. The scene from MI3 may be more immediately exciting, but when it’s over, it’s over. This scene can be thought about and dissected long after the movie is over—and when you think about it, we’re really just talking about a guy hanging from a wire. That and a buttload of visual and storytelling intelligence—that’s all you need.

SPOILERS > > >
So, after a brief scene in which we discover that Hunt is also adept in performing quick-disappearance magic tricks, Hunt soon discovers that Phelps is still alive. Phelps tells him that Kitteridge [their boss at the IMF] is responsible, and now begins one of the more ambitious sequences of the film, and one I suspect only alienated audiences. As Hunt verbalizes for Phelps the process by which he is piecing together how Phelps could have escaped, we see his mental process as he puts together that Phelps IS the mole, and how Phelps and Claire collaborated to set Ethan up. This total disconnect between what one is hearing and what one is seeing is quite jarring, and again, most viewers will piece together what just happened—if they get it at all—only AFTER the sequence [or the movie] has ended. De Palma did a similar thing at the end of Sisters, in which one adult character is shown as a twin child in a flashback, and we are to understand that what we’re seeing is her mental process, and what she represents IS the twin. I actually have to say that I would not have understood that sequence in Sisters if I had not already been familiar with this sequence in Mission: Impossible. It’s a little disarming and ambitious, but it is quite refreshing for the director of a mainstream thriller to OVERESTIMATE the audience’s intelligence for once.

Now think back to that dream Ethan has that Phelps is still alive, although it turns out to be Claire. I think this is to show us that on a subconscious level he still knows that Phelps is alive, and has made the connection that he and Claire may be up to no good together.

So now we move onto the climax on the high-speed train from England into France. First Ethan, in disguise as Phelps, gets a confession from Claire, but soon the real Phelps shows up and they both move onto the roof of the train. De Palma wisely makes the simple speed of the train and the high wind it causes the main obstacle of the chase, with both of them holding on for life as their bodies are blown straight back. A helicopter, piloted by Franz, who we have come to understand is in with Phelps, arrives to remove him from the train. Ethan fixes the helicopter’s line to the train [and pause to note his malicious “Ha!” directed at Franz] just as they are about to enter the Channel Tunnel, and after an attempt to get away, Franz realizes that he has to fly his helicopter into the tunnel. Notice the beautiful shot as we enter the tunnel: the train enters, then the helicopter, its blades releasing a slight shower of sparks that fly past the camera as the screen goes black. We cut to a short, tension-building scene on thetrain, then, with a great burst of energy, back to the helicopter chase and the climax proper.

The climax is amusingly preposterous, but I admire that we’re just talking about simple, reall-world elements such as trains, helicopters, and high wind. There’s a big struggle and it reaches ludicrous highs—not least of which is Ethan using the force of a nearby explosion to propel himself through the air and onto the moving train—and ending with him facing the prospect of being crushed or pureed to death by the helicopter blades. I like it because it’s made of common elements, as I said, but also that it provides a real, visceral kick to the end of the film, is at once overblown, vaguely sensible, and as is only fitting, impossible.
< < < SPOILERS END

Overall, maybe not the best, most satisfying spy movie you’ve ever seen on a pure movie fun level—in part because the story is complex and many of the scenes only have their full impact once the scene has ended—but rare among spy thrillers in that there ARE aspects you can think about and pick apart later, it has wonderful cinematic technique, and it has an idea about the life of the spy and what an intelligent spy movie should be. I also like that it restricts its major setpieces to two episodes, so the film as a whole retains a rhythm and shape, and so the final climax is a genuinely exciting release. So many current movies are just wall-to-wall action, so that a viewer is exhausted by the end, and the final climax has little to no impact because of the high level the film has been operating at since its beginning.

So there ya are. Definitely more of a “De Palma” film than one might think [especially as this is often considered a "De Palma-for-hire" movie], and a reasonably intelligent spy movie, with a complex story told in an interesting way that, if anything, overestimates the audience’s intelligence. And Emmanelle Beart. Can’t go wrong with Emmanuelle Beart.

SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?

You can watch it because you want to see a spy movie, but I think it is more rewarding when watched within the context of De Palma’s ouevre.