Stubs - Mission: Impossible

Mission: Impossible (1996) starring Tom Cruise, Jon Voight, Henry Czerny, Emmanuelle Béart, Jean Reno, Ving Rhames, Kristin Scott Thomas, Vanessa Redgrave Directed by Brian DePalma. Screenplay by David Koepp, Robert Towne. Based on Mission: Impossible by Bruce Geller. Produced by Tom Cruise, Paula Wagner. Run time: 110 minutes. Color. USA Action, Espionage

If you were a fan of the original TV series, Mission: Impossible (1966-1973), you were definitely interested when Paramount announced it was bringing the story to the big screen. You might have been drawn in for its star Tom Cruise, or the script by Robert Towne, or the direction by Briana DePalma, but this was a film designed to put people in seats. But if you were a fan of the original series, you might have qualms with the adaptation.

Paramount Pictures, which owned the rights to the series, had apparently been trying for years to make a film adaptation, but all attempts had failed. Enter actor Tom Cruise and his producing partner, Paula Wagner. Cruise, who had grown up as a fan of the show, was interested in taking on the challenge of making it into a film. He convinced Paramount to put up $70 million and Cruise and Wagner started working with Sydney Pollack on a story, that is until Brian DePalma was hired to direct. DePalma brought in screenwriters Steven Zaillian, David Koepp and, finally, Robert Towne, best known for Chinatown, to finish the screenplay.

But the film went into pre-production without a finished script. Principal photography took place between March and August 1995 and was one of the first Hollywood films to be both set and shot in Prague. Filming also took place in England's Pinewood Studios, with some scenes shot in London, Scotland and in the United States. The film opened on May 22, 1996.

From l to r: Jack Harmon (Emilio Estevez), Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise),
Claire Phelps (Emmanuelle Béart) and Jim Phelps (Jon Voight)

In the film, after finishing a mission in Kiev, IMF agent Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) and his latest team are sent to Prague to stop rogue agent Alexander Golitsyn (Marcel Iureș) from stealing the CIA's NOC (non-official cover) list, which reveals the identities of all their undercover agents in Europe. The team consists of Jack Harmon (an uncredited Emilio Estevez): An IMF agent and security system specialist; Hannah Williams (Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė): An IMF agent and surveillance expert; Sarah Davies (Kristin Scott Thomas): An IMF agent and undercover infiltration expert; Claire Phelps (Emmanuelle Béart): Phelps's wife and a member of his IMF team, specializing in getaway transportation; and a young IMF Agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise).

Sarah Davies (Kristin Scott Thomas) dies as Ethan watches helplessly.

They know the plan is to steal the list at an Embassy party and even though the team seems to have all the bases covered, the list is stolen. Meanwhile, Phelps pretends to be shot and orders the team to abort the mission, but they don’t, and one by one, along with Golitsyn, the IMF team is killed, leaving Ethan as the only survivor.

IMF director, Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny) debriefs Ethan.

Ethan finds out that the IMF director, Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny), is in Prague and they meet to debrief Ethan at a restaurant. But Ethan recognizes other people from the Embassy and realizes that another IMF team was present during the mission and that the operation was a setup to lure out a mole within the IMF with the help of Golitsyn, who was posing as the rogue agent. The mole is believed to be working with an arms dealer named "Max" as part of "Job 314". Realizing that Kittridge suspects he is the mole, Ethan escapes, using a plastic explosive disguised as chewing gum to blow up a large fish aquarium at the restaurant.

Ethan escapes Kittridge.

Returning to the Prague safe house, Ethan realizes "Job 314" actually refers to Bible verse Job 3:14, with "Job" being the mole's code name. Jim's wife Claire, who faked her death during the mission, arrives and explains that before his death, Jim warned her that they were compromised.

Using Job 314, Ethan makes contact with Max.

Using email, Ethan arranges for a meeting with Max to warn her that her NOC list is fake and that it is equipped with a tracking device. Despite Max's initial skepticism, they escape a raid by Kittridge's team. Ethan convinces Max that he can obtain the actual NOC list for $10 million and Job's true identity. She agrees.

Max (Vannessa Redgrave) doesn't trust Ethan right away.

Ethan and Claire recruit two disavowed IMF agents, a skilled computer hacker, Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), and a skilled helicopter pilot, Franz Krieger (Jean Reno). Using a false fire alarm, Ethan, Claire, and Franz manage to infiltrate CIA headquarters in Langley.

Ethan finds a skilled computer hacker, Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), and
a skilled helicopter pilot, Franz Krieger (Jean Reno), to help him steal the NOC list.

The vault where the real NOC list is stored is secured with lasers, temperature gauges and motion detectors, designed by William Donloe (Rolf Saxon), a CIA analyst, who is also the only one allowed inside. Pretending to be an employee, Claire manages to get close enough to Donloe to poison him, which allows Ethan and Franz to enter through the air conditioning vent on the roof. With Franz holding the rope, Ethan is lowered into the vault and with Donloe away getting sick, Ethan manages to steal the authentic list and escape to London.

William Donloe (Rolf Saxon), a CIA analyst, doesn't see Ethan.

Krieger takes the magneto-optical disk containing the list, but Ethan tricks him into giving it up before giving it to Luther for safekeeping. Kittridge has Ethan's mother and uncle falsely arrested to lure Ethan out. After learning about the arrests, Ethan contacts Kittridge from a payphone, intentionally allowing the IMF to trace the call.

But as soon as he ends the call, Phelps appears unexpectedly. The two go to a café, where Phelps recounts surviving the shooting, and tells Ethan that Kittridge is the mole. However, Ethan has already realized that Jim is the mole after discovering that the Bible he used in Prague was taken from Chicago's Drake Hotel, where Jim was stationed on a previous assignment.

When Ethan returns to the safe house, Claire appears to seduce him and he appears to go along, despite knowing her husband.

But Ethan pretends to believe Jim and arranges to exchange the list with Max aboard the TGV train to Paris, secretly inviting Kittridge to the meeting.

On the train, Ethan directs Max to the list, and she sends him to the baggage car where the money and Job are located. Meanwhile, Luther sabotages Max's upload of the list to her servers by jamming her signal.

Claire goes to the car to collect her share of the money from Phelps but realizes he is Ethan in disguise. The real Phelps arrives and takes the money at gunpoint, but Ethan sends a live video of the confrontation to Kittridge, exposing Jim as the mole.

Phelps steals the money and kills Claire.

Claire tries reasoning with her husband, but Jim kills her and subdues Ethan. Phelps climbs to the train's roof and attempts to flee with Krieger in a helicopter using a rope, but Ethan hooks it onto the train, forcing the helicopter into the Channel Tunnel. Krieger tries to kill Ethan but he bumps the tunnel and pulls back.

Ethan blows up the helicopter.

Using another piece of explosive gum, Ethan destroys the chopper, and kills Jim and Krieger.

Kittridge takes Max into custody and recovers the NOC list from Luther.

As he and Luther are reinstated in the IMF, Ethan is unsure about returning to the team. On the flight home, an attendant approaches him and covertly offers him the chance to take on a new mission as team leader.

When it was released, the film was the first to be shown in over 3000 theaters in the U.S. and would have the largest May opening weekend up to that time, earning $75 million in its first six days. The film went on to make $181 million in North America and $276.7 million in the rest of the world for a worldwide total of $457.7 million.

Reviews were not as over-the-top as the box-office, most reviewers pointing out the film’s convoluted plot. Writing for The New York Times, Stephen Holden dismissed it, "If that story doesn't make a shred of sense on any number of levels, so what? Neither did the television series, in which basic credibility didn't matter so long as its sci-fi popular mechanics kept up the suspense."

The plot is convoluted and there are some holes that never get filled. The fact that Ethan is somewhat familiar with the CIA’s security vault is the first one you might notice. How did he come upon these secret details? And, how did Phelps know where Ethan was going to call Kittridge that he just showed up? Even if Claire let him know Ethan was going to make a call, it is hard to imagine she knew exactly where he was going since he doesn’t tell her.

The film sought to transition what had been a Cold War TV spy drama into a post-Cold War film franchise, and something that had been about a team into something that concentrated on a single character. That transition was not without its critics, which included people who liked the original TV series and that series’ cast members. It is reported that they loathed the film.

Taking Jim Phelps from the reliable leader of the IMF into a villain didn’t sit well with Peter Graves, who had played the character on the show since its second season on the air. At the time, Graves simply remarked to The Guardian, "I am sorry that they chose to call him Phelps." Later, he added that the film's premise could have been exactly the same without calling Voight's character Jim Phelps. "They could have solved that very easily by either having me in a scene in the very beginning, or reading a telegram from me saying, 'Hey boys, I'm retired, gone to Hawaii.’”

Greg Morris, who played one of the show's tech experts, Barney Collier, had harsher criticism, declaring it an "abomination” to The Los Angeles Times, after walking out of a screening after 40 minutes. Martin Landau rejected the idea of reprising his character from the TV show, Rollin Hand, in Mission: Impossible, noting that an earlier version of the film's script went further than the eventual movie did, explaining, "They wanted the entire team to be destroyed, done away with one at a time, and I was against that."

Ethan's descent goes wrong but he recovers.

While Cruise gets a lot of press for performing his own stunts, they are not nearly as over-the-top in this first film; they grow riskier as the franchise continued. They seem much more staged here than they do in later films.

The special effects seem more staged.

The acting is good for this type of movie, though there isn’t much required as far as range goes. I’m more impressed by the people who were in the film, rather than their performances. Besides the leads, the film has Emmanuelle Béart, Jean Reno, Ving Rhames, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Vanessa Redgrave in supporting roles. There is not a bad actor amongst them. And while I can’t say I’m a big fan of his work, Emilio Estevez is good in a role that he didn’t receive credit for.

Brian DePalma is a director known as much for his homage to other film directors as for his commercial success with those films. While the film Topkapi was considered an inspiration for the Mission: Impossible series, the best-known scene in this film, the Vault scene in which Tom Cruise steals the NOC list, is lifted from Topkapi as well. In that film, with more ancient tech, a character hangs by a wire in order to steal a dagger.

Even though, as a fan of the series, I had problems with Mission: Impossible’s changes to the IMF team, I’ve since come around. Having seen most of the films in the franchise, I’ve been able to put that behind me and do enjoy the series. And, while it’s probably not 100% necessary to have watched this film, there will be elements that come up in later films. While not as exciting or as over-the-top as future films, the original is still enjoyable.