An American agent, under false suspicion of disloyalty, must discover and expose the real spy without the help of his organization.
Director Brian De Palma is known for making supernatural thrillers and horror films like “Sisters,” “Carrie,” “Dressed to Kill,” and one of my all-time favorites, “The Fury,” starring Kirk Douglas and John Cassavetes. As his career progressed, he branched out into dramas and thrillers such as “Blow Out,” “Scarface,” “The Untouchables,” and “Casualties of War” but I was surprised when he was announced as the director of the big-budget adaptation of the ’60s TV show, “Mission: Impossible.” He had never made a movie like this before but my fears were laid to rest after seeing it for the first time and up until “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation” in 2015, it remained my favorite “Mission” film of all time.
In “Mission: Impossible,” we are introduced to Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his IMF (Impossible Mission Force) team as they prepare for a mission in Prague in the Czech Republic. When things go south quickly, and his team is killed off one by one, and Hunt is implicated in their deaths, he must go on the run to try and clear his name, while hooking up with two disavowed agents, Luther (Ving Rhames) and Krieger (Jean Reno). They must retrieve a secret list that contains the names and codenames of every one of their agents working undercover around the world in order to try and lure a traitor out into the open before it falls into the wrong hands.
Director De Palma keeps the action and tension moving at breakneck speed, culminating in one of the best finales in modern cinema, an action setpiece that takes place in the Channel Tunnel under the English Channel involving the TGV, France’s high-speed rail train, and a helicopter. Cruise infuses his character with compassion, empathy, and a few moments of tenderness, but he balances it out perfectly, when he has to, with nerves of steel and unwavering perseverance. Jean Reno, Jon Voight, Ving Rhames, Emmanuelle Béart, and a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him Emilio Estevez round out the rest of the cast and by the time the film’s final credits begin to roll, the movie naturally sets up an inevitable sequel.
Available on a newly remastered 25th Anniversary Collector’s Edition Blu-ray™ May 18th
