Mission: Impossible (film)


Mission: Impossible is a 1996 American spy film directed by Brian De Palma, and produced by and starring Tom Cruise from a screenplay by David Koepp and Robert Towne and story by Koepp and Steven Zaillian. A reboot of the 1966 television series of the same name and its 1988 sequel series, it is the first installment in the Mission: Impossible film series. It also stars Jon Voight, Henry Czerny, Emmanuelle Béart, Jean Reno, Ving Rhames, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Vanessa Redgrave. In the film, Ethan Hunt seeks to uncover who framed him for the murders of most of his Impossible Missions Force team.
Numerous efforts by Paramount Pictures to create a film adaptation of the television series stalled until Cruise founded Cruise/Wagner Productions in 1992 and decided on Mission: Impossible as its inaugural project. Development initially began with filmmaker Sydney Pollack but most of the final screenplay was completed after De Palma, Steven Zaillian, David Koepp and Robert Towne were hired; De Palma also designed most of the action sequences, while Cruise did most of his own stunts. Principal photography began in March 1995 and lasted until that August, with filming locations including London, Pinewood Studios in England, and Prague.
Mission: Impossible was theatrically released in the United States by Paramount Pictures on May 22, 1996. The film received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for the action sequences, De Palma's direction and Cruise's performance, but criticism for a convoluted plot. The film grossed $457.7 million worldwide, making it the third-highest-grossing film of 1996, while the dance rendition of the original theme song by Larry Mullen Jr. and Adam Clayton became a top-ten hit internationally and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance. The film's success led to a long-running film franchise, beginning with Mission: Impossible 2, released four years later in 2000.

Plot

After finishing a mission in Kyiv, IMF agent Jim Phelps and his latest team are sent to Prague to stop rogue agent Alexander Golitsyn from stealing the CIA's NOC list, which reveals the identities of all their undercover agents in Europe. However, the list is stolen, and the team is killed one by one, along with Golitsyn, leaving Jim's pointman Ethan Hunt the only survivor.
During a debriefing with IMF director Eugene Kittridge in a restaurant, Ethan 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.
After returning to the Prague safe house, Ethan realizes "Job 314" actually refers to Bible verse, 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, which enabled her escape. Ethan arranges 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.
Ethan and Claire recruit two disavowed IMF agents, high-level hacker Luther Stickell and pilot Franz Krieger. They infiltrate CIA headquarters in Langley, steal the authentic list in an elaborate heist, and escape to London. 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. Jim resurfaces unexpectedly, 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. 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. Claire goes to the car to collect her share of the money from Jim but realizes he is Ethan in disguise. When the real Jim arrives and takes the money at gunpoint, Ethan sends a live video of the confrontation to Kittridge, exposing Jim as the mole. Claire tries reasoning with her husband, but Jim kills her and subdues Ethan. Jim 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. He uses another piece of explosive to destroy the chopper, killing 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.

Cast

  • Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt: A young IMF agent
  • Jon Voight as Jim Phelps: The leader of Ethan's IMF team and his mentor
  • Emmanuelle Béart as Claire Phelps: Jim's wife and a member of his IMF team, specializing in getaway transportation
  • Henry Czerny as Eugene Kittridge: The director of the IMF
  • Jean Reno as Franz Krieger: A disavowed IMF agent and skilled pilot recruited by Ethan to assist him
  • Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell: A disavowed IMF agent and skilled computer hacker recruited by Ethan to assist him
  • Vanessa Redgrave as Max: An illegal arms dealer
  • Kristin Scott Thomas as Sarah Davies: An IMF agent and undercover infiltration expert on Phelps's IMF team
  • Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė as Hannah Williams: An IMF agent and surveillance expert on Phelps's IMF team
  • Emilio Estevez as Jack Harmon: An IMF agent and security system specialist on Phelps's IMF team
  • Rolf Saxon as William Donloe: A CIA analyst at Langley
  • Marcel Iureș as Alexander Golitsyn: An IMF agent posing as a rogue agent to lure out a mole in Prague
Additional cast members include Karel Dobrý and Andreas Wisniewski as Max's henchmen, Annabel Mullion as an IMF agent posing as the flight attendant on Ethan's plane, Olegar Fedoro as an IMF agent during the Kyiv sequence, Dale Dye as IMF agent Frank Barnes, who assists Eugene Kittridge to track down Ethan; and Morgan Deare and Laura Brook as Donald and Margaret Hunt, Ethan's mother and uncle.

Production

Development and writing

owned the rights to the Mission: Impossible television series and had tried for years to make a film version but had failed to come up with a viable film treatment. Tom Cruise had been a fan of the show since he was young and thought that it would be a good idea for a film. Cruise chose Mission: Impossible to be the inaugural project of his new production company and convinced Paramount to put up a $70 million budget. Cruise and his producing partner, Paula Wagner, worked on a story with filmmaker Sydney Pollack for a few months when Cruise hired Brian De Palma to direct. While working on Interview with the Vampire, Cruise met De Palma during a dinner with Steven Spielberg. Already impressed by his filmography, when he went back home, he re-watched all of De Palma's films and convinced himself to have De Palma hired to direct Mission: Impossible. They went through two screenplay drafts that no one liked. De Palma brought in screenwriters Steven Zaillian, David Koepp and, finally, Robert Towne.
When the film was green-lit Koepp was initially fired with Towne being the lead writer and Koepp being brought back on later. According to De Palma, the goal of the script was to "constantly surprise the audience." Reportedly, Koepp was paid $1 million to rewrite an original script by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz. According to one project source, there were problems with dialogue and story development. However, the basic plot remained intact.
The film went into pre-production without a finished script. De Palma designed the action sequences, but neither Koepp nor Towne were satisfied with the story that would make these sequences take place. Towne ended up helping organize a beginning, middle and end to hang story details on while De Palma and Koepp collaborated on the plot. De Palma convinced Cruise to set the first act of the film in Prague, a city rarely seen in Hollywood films at the time. Reportedly, studio executives wanted to keep the film's budget in the $40–50 million range. Still, Cruise wanted a "big, showy action piece" that took the budget up to $62 million range. The scene that takes place in a glass-walled restaurant with a giant lobster tank in the middle and three huge fish tanks overhead was Cruise's idea. There were 16 tons in all of the tanks, and there was a concern that when they detonated, much glass would fly around. De Palma tried the sequence with a stuntman, but it did not look convincing, and he asked Cruise to do it, despite the possibility that the actor could have drowned. During the filming of the scene in the vault heist where Cruise is suspended by a cable, Cruise put British pound coins in his shoes as counterweights to stay level.
Principal photography took place between March and August 1995 mainly in Prague and England's Pinewood Studios, but some scenes were shot in London, Scotland and the United States. The film was one of the first Hollywood features to be both set and shot in contemporary Prague with extensive filming throughout a number of recognizable places including Charles Bridge, National Museum or Old Town Square.
Cruise approved the script for a showdown to take place on top of a moving train. The actor wanted to use France's high-speed train for filming, the TGV, but the rail authorities objected. Thus, De Palma visited railroads on two continents, trying to find a suitable location elsewhere. Cruise decided to dine with the TGV owners, and the following day, the crew were given permission. For the actual sequence, Cruise wanted the wind powerful enough that it could blow him off the train. Cruise had difficulty finding the right machine to create the wind velocity that would look visually accurate before remembering a simulator he used while training as a skydiver. The only machine of its kind in Europe was located and acquired. Cruise had it produce winds up to 140 miles per hour so it would distort his face. Exterior shots of the train were filmed on the Glasgow South Western Line, between New Cumnock, Dumfries and Annan. Most of the sequence, however, was filmed at Pinewood's 007 Stage against a blue screen and was later digitized by Industrial Light & Magic.
The filmmakers delivered the film on time and under budget, a rarity in Hollywood, with Cruise doing most of his own stunts. Initially, there was a sophisticated opening sequence that introduced a love triangle between Jim Phelps, his wife Claire and Ethan Hunt that was removed on the advice of George Lucas because it took the test audience "out of the genre," according to De Palma. There were rumors that Cruise and De Palma did not get along. These rumors were fueled when the director excused himself at the last moment from scheduled media interviews before the film's theatrical release.