Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol


Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is a 2011 American action spy film directed by Brad Bird from a screenplay by the writing team of Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec, who also serve as co-producers. Produced by Tom Cruise, J. J. Abrams, and Bryan Burk, it is the sequel to Mission: Impossible III and the fourth installment in the Mission: Impossible film series. The film stars Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, and Paula Patton, with Michael Nyqvist, Vladimir Mashkov, Josh Holloway, Anil Kapoor, and Léa Seydoux in supporting roles. In the film, the Impossible Missions Force is shut down after being publicly implicated in a bombing of the Kremlin, causing Ethan Hunt and his team to go without their usual resources or backup in a life-threatening effort to clear their names.
Development for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol began in August 2009, when Appelbaum and Nemec were hired to write the screenplay. Cruise's return was confirmed by March 2010 after Bird was announced to direct the film, replacing Abrams, who stayed on this film as a producer. The film was officially titled in October 2010, after which, principal photography took place and lasted until March 2011, with filming locations including Bangalore, Mumbai, Budapest, Moscow, Dubai, and Canadian Motion Picture Park Studios in Vancouver. Like previous entries in the franchise, the cast, most notably Cruise, completed most of their own stunts, while parts of the film were shot in IMAX.
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol premiered at the Dubai International Film Festival on December 7, 2011, and was released in IMAX and select large-format theaters on December 16, before being theatrically released in the United States by Paramount Pictures on December 21. It received positive reviews from critics, with praise for the action sequences, Cruise's performance, and Bird's direction. It grossed $694.7 million worldwide, becoming the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2011, as well as the highest-grossing film in the franchise and the highest-grossing film starring Cruise until it was surpassed by Mission: Impossible – Fallout. Retrospective reviews later credit the film for revitalizing the Mission: Impossible franchise back into mainstream success. The film was followed by Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation in 2015.

Plot

agent Trevor Hanaway is killed in Budapest by assassin Sabine Moreau, who steals Russian nuclear launch codes to sell to a man named "Cobalt". IMF agent Ethan Hunt is extracted from a Moscow prison, along with an asset named Bogdan, by Hanaway's handler and girlfriend, Jane Carter, and newly promoted field agent Benji Dunn. The team is ordered to infiltrate the Kremlin for information on Cobalt. While they are inside, Cobalt blows the team's cover, and they escape before a bomb destroys the Kremlin. Ethan is arrested by SVR agent Anatoly Sidorov and is blamed for the bombing.
Ethan escapes and meets with the IMF Secretary in Moscow with analyst William Brandt. Brandt identifies Cobalt as Kurt Hendricks, a strategist seeking nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia. They determine that Hendricks bombed the Kremlin to cover his theft of a Russian launch control device. The Secretary explains that the President has initiated the "Ghost Protocol", disavowing the IMF. He secretly orders Ethan to continue pursuing Cobalt before being killed in an ambush by Sidorov's forces. Ethan escapes with Brandt and regroups with Jane and Benji. They plan to infiltrate a meeting between Hendricks's associate, Wistrom, and Moreau at the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, where Wistrom will buy the stolen launch codes.
The team plans to intercept the codes by faking two meetings: Ethan and Brandt posing as Wistrom and Leonid Lisenker, a cryptographer, to receive the codes from Moreau; Jane poses as Moreau, passing counterfeit codes to the real Wistrom and Lisenker. They are forced to give the actual codes when they discover that Lisenker can immediately authenticate them, relying on radioactive isotopes on the paper to track Wistrom afterward. Completing the buy, Wistrom double-crosses and murders Lisenker. Having deduced that the buy is a setup, Moreau attempts to flee, but Jane intercepts her. When Moreau attacks Benji while trying to escape, an enraged Jane breaks her promise to Ethan earlier about fighting assets and attacks Moreau. Brandt overhears the gunfire and rushes into the room but fails to stop Jane from killing Moreau. Sidorov attempts but fails to apprehend Ethan, who flees the Burj Khalifa and pursues Wistrom.
As Ethan and Wistrom run into a sandstorm, Wistrom reveals himself to be a masked Hendricks and escapes. In front of the team, Ethan confronts Brandt over the advanced fighting skills that he displayed in the hotel. After Ethan leaves, Brandt admits he resigned as a field agent after failing to protect Julia Meade, Ethan's wife, from a hit. Bogdan takes Ethan to the Fog, an arms dealer, and learns that Hendricks is planning to launch missiles using an old Soviet military satellite. The satellite is owned by an Indian media tycoon, Brij Nath. The Fog sells the same information to Sidorov. In Mumbai, Jane seduces Nath and then overpowers him to get the satellite's override code; the team pursues Hendricks and Wistrom to one of Nath's broadcast stations to stop him from sending the codes via the satellite.
Hendricks sends launch orders to a Russian nuclear submarine to fire a missile at San Francisco, while Wistrom sabotages the station system to prevent IMF interference. Benji, Brandt, and Jane attempt to repair the station while Ethan pursues Hendricks. Cornered by Ethan, Hendricks kills himself by jumping off a high ledge with the launch device to place it out of reach. After Benji kills Wistrom, Brandt turns on the power and Jane reconnects the system; Ethan then retrieves the launch device to disable the missile moments before detonation; a fatally wounded Hendricks witnesses the failure of his plan before dying. Sidorov arrives and realizes that the IMF was innocent of the Kremlin bombing, thus clearing its name and being reinstated.
In Seattle, Ethan assembles his team for another mission given by Luther Stickell. Brandt confesses to Ethan his failure to protect Julia, but Ethan reveals that she is alive and her death was staged to give her a new identity safely away from him and to let him infiltrate the prison to find Bogdan. A relieved Brandt accepts his mission. Julia arrives and smiles at Ethan from afar before he slips away and receives an IMF briefing.

Cast

  • Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt: An agent of the Impossible Missions Force.
  • Jeremy Renner as William Brandt: The IMF Secretary's aide and an intelligence analyst.
  • Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn: A new IMF field agent and former IMF technician.
  • Paula Patton as Jane Carter: An IMF agent and Hanaway's handler who works with Ethan.
  • Michael Nyqvist as Kurt Hendricks: A Swedish-born Russian nuclear strategist codenamed "Cobalt".
  • Vladimir Mashkov as Anatoly Sidorov: A Russian SVR Agent who is after Ethan.
  • Léa Seydoux as Sabine Moreau: An assassin who worked for Hendricks in Dubai.
  • Josh Holloway as Trevor Hanaway: An IMF agent murdered by Moreau.
  • Anil Kapoor as Brij Nath: A media tycoon in Mumbai.
  • Samuli Edelmann as Marius Wistrom: Hendricks's henchman.
  • Ivan Shvedoff as Leonid Lisenker: A cryptography expert coerced by Hendricks.
  • Miraj Grbić as Bogdan: An informant in a Moscow prison.
  • Ilia Volok as The Fog: An arms dealer and Bogdan's cousin.
  • Andreas Wisniewski as The Fog's contact. Wisniewski's character originally appeared in Mission: Impossible, working for arms dealer Max.
  • Tom Wilkinson as the IMF Secretary
  • Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell: Ethan's oldest friend and main computer technician who sits out the mission.
  • Michelle Monaghan as Julia Meade-Hunt: Ethan's wife.

    Production

Development

Despite Mission: Impossible III earning less than its predecessors at the box office, Paramount Pictures was keen on developing a fourth film in the Mission: Impossible film series. In August 2009, Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec were hired to write the film's screenplay. Because of other commitments, J. J. Abrams said that it was unlikely for him to return as director but made note that he would produce the film alongside Tom Cruise. By March 2010, director Brad Bird was in talks to direct the film with Cruise returning to star as Ethan Hunt.
The film was originally announced with the working title of Mission: Impossible 4 and code-named "Aries" during early production. By August 2010, title considerations did not include the Mission: Impossible 4 name, and thought was given to omitting the specific term "Mission: Impossible", which Variety compared to Christopher Nolan's Batman sequel film The Dark Knight. In late October 2010, the title was confirmed as Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.

Casting

was announced to have joined the film on August 26, 2010. Deadline Hollywood reported that Renner's character would be a potential lead for future films if Cruise decided to quit the franchise. Cruise subsequently denied this. On August 27, it was reported that Lauren German, Paula Patton and Kristin Kreuk were auditioning for the role of a young female operative. On September 1, Patton was announced to have been cast in the part. Vladimir Mashkov was announced on September 23 as a Russian agent. On 28 September Josh Holloway was announced as a member of the Impossible Missions Force. On October 7 Anil Kapoor was announced in a supporting role. The same day, Léa Seydoux was announced as a female villain.

Filming

The film was partially shot with IMAX film cameras, which made up approximately 30 minutes of the film's run time. Bird insisted that certain scenes of the film be shot in IMAX, as opposed to 3D, as he felt that the IMAX format offered the viewer more immersion due to its brighter, higher quality image, which is projected on a larger screen, without the need for specialised glasses. Bird also believed that the IMAX format would bring back "a level of showmanship" to the presentation of Hollywood films, which he believes the industry has lost due to its emphasis on screening films in multiplexes as opposed to grand theaters, and vetoing "first runs" in favor of wider initial releases.
Principal photography took place from October 2010 to March 19, 2011. Filming took place in Budapest, Mumbai, Prague, Moscow, Vancouver, Bangalore, Chennai, and Dubai. Although Cruise appears to be free solo climbing in the film with the help of special gloves, in reality, he was securely attached to the Burj Khalifa at all times by multiple cables; Industrial Light & Magic digitally erased the cables in post-production. Following Cruise's example, Patton and Seydoux also chose to forgo the use of stunt doubles for their fight scene at the Burj Khalifa.
Many of the film's interior scenes were shot at Vancouver's Canadian Motion Picture Park Studios, including a key transition scene in a specially equipped IMF train car and the fight between Hunt and Hendricks in a Mumbai automated multi-level parking garage. The Vancouver Convention Centre was modified to double as downtown Mumbai. The film's opening Moscow prison escape scenes were shot on location in a real former prison near Prague.
In the middle of production Cruise brought screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie, with whom he had worked on the film Valkyrie to rewrite the screenplay. McQuarrie described his contribution: "The script had these fantastic sequences in it but there was a mystery in it that was very complicated. What I did was about clarity. The mystery had to be made simpler." McQuarrie did not receive a screenplay credit for his rewrite, although certain trailers included his name in the credits.
Bird incorporated the trademark "A113", a reference to the classroom he attended while in the California Institute of the Arts, into the film on two separate occasions. The first is the design print on Hanaway's ring during the flashback sequence, and the second being when Hunt calls in for support and uses the drop callsign, Alpha 1–1–3.