Director: Brian De Palma
Writers: David Koepp, Robert
Towne, Steven Zaillian, Bruce Geller (television series)
Starring: Tom Cruise, Jon
Voight, Emmanuelle Beart, Henry Czerny, Jean Reno, Ving Rhames, Kristin Scott
Thomas, Emilio Estevez, Ingeborga Dapkunaite, Vanessa Redgrave, Dale Dye
I think it’s easy to dismiss
the first “Mission: Impossible” movie as just another Hollywood blockbuster
remake that exists to thrill and excite and maybe even bolster the career of
one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, but I feel it is an extremely well conceived
spearhead by its star Tom Cruise and his producing partner Paula Wagner to
reinvent a franchise into an on going genre machine.
Take their choice of a
director for their first outing. Brian De Palma is a controversial director who
came up during the seventies and specializes in plot twists. He’s a very
stylized director who has the ability to hide his stylization within the genre
in which he’s working. Here’ he handles the spy genre in much the same way the
original “Mission: Impossible” television series did. He wisely uses many of
the conventions of the TV series and then throws them all out the window by
wiping out the entire IMF team on their first mission. Then throughout the rest
of the movie he invents new traditions for the film series that will become
recurring themes throughout its sequels.
Cruise’s own Ethan Hunt isn’t
your typical action hero. There is almost no effort made to endear this
character to the audience before the filmmakers ask us to jump on his side when
he’s framed as a traitor. For all we know, he is. Except that Tom Cruise is
playing him.
The screenwriters’ approach
to this hero is purely logical. He must figure out this puzzle he’s in.
Personal life doesn’t enter into it. He’s a spy. It shouldn’t, but audiences
aren’t really used to getting purely functional heroes. We do so like
extraneous emotions. But, it all works. Without the unnecessary details, the
movie becomes all about the mission, and isn’t this what a movie called “Mission:
Impossible” should be about.
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