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The Rewatchables ·

Mission: Impossible

year 1996decade 90sdirector Brian De Palmagenre Drama
host Chris Ryanhost Sean Fennesseyhost Jason Concepcion
All 14 categories

Most Rewatchable Scene · 21:16

The Langley heist

Nominees run through the Prague sequence as a whole (a 32-minute opening act that even fades to black after Tom Cruise jumps through the Aquarium and escapes from Kittredge), Ethan and Max's negotiation, the Langley heist, and the Phelps versus Hunt coffee scene where Hunt sees what Phelps has done while Phelps lies to him, the scene that confused a generation of filmgoers.

One host admits not understanding the coffee scene until rewatching it yesterday after roughly 20 viewings; the Langley break-in is called the most iconic, incredibly staged, ripped off numerous times, and the precedent for Tom Cruise attempting something that seems impossible, even though Wu takes it to another level.

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie · 58:21

"You've never seen me very upset"

Nominees: 'do you read me, the list is in the open', already flagged; Kittredge's line that dying slowly in America can be a very expensive proposition, guessed to be Robert Towne or David Koepp; 'you've never seen me very upset'; 'relax Luther, it's much worse than you think'; and Kittredge wanting Don Lowe (as transcribed) manning a radar tower in Alaska by the end of the day, just mail him his clothes.

The film

Mission: Impossible (1996)

Directed by Brian De Palma · Drama

110 minutes

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Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

Tom Cruise Ethan Hunt : A young IMF agent
Jon Voight Jim Phelps : The leader of Ethan's IMF team and his mentor
Emmanuelle Béart Claire Phelps: Jim's wife and a member of his IMF team, specializing in getaway transportation
Henry Czerny Eugene Kittridge: The director of the IMF
Jean Reno Franz Krieger: A disavowed IMF agent and skilled pilot recruited by Ethan to assist him
Ving Rhames Luther Stickell : A disavowed IMF agent and skilled computer hacker recruited by Ethan to assist him
Vanessa Redgrave Max: An illegal arms dealer
Kristin Scott Thomas Sarah Davies: An IMF agent and undercover infiltration expert on Phelps's IMF team
Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė Hannah Williams: An IMF agent and surveillance expert on Phelps's IMF team
Emilio Estevez (uncredited) Jack Harmon: An IMF agent and security system specialist on Phelps's IMF team
Rolf Saxon William Donloe: A CIA analyst at Langley
Marcel Iureș Alexander Golitsyn: An IMF agent posing as a rogue agent to lure out a mole in Prague

Everything from the episode

In the order the hosts got to it. Open a row for the discussion.

31:53

Casting What-Ifs

Juliette Binoche turned down Claire; Peter Graves and Martin Landau turned down roles after reading the script; Demi ...

Juliette Binoche turned down Claire; Peter Graves and Martin Landau turned down roles after reading the script; Demi Moore floated as Claire

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:31:53Read transcript
  • There are not many casting what-ifs because the movie was put together by Cruise and Wagner; Juliette Binoche turned down Claire because she did not want to be known for blockbusters, which worked out for her, and it would have been a funny coincidence with Kristen Scott Thomas in two well-seen 1996 movies in the year of The English Patient.
  • Peter Graves and Martin Landau from the original series turned down roles after reading the script; Graves did not care for Jim Phelps being the villain and Landau thought it got away from what made the show good, though the hosts wonder whether the roles were smaller than they wanted and joke about Landau feeling himself after his 1994 Oscar.
  • Since Claire did not have to be European, Demi Moore is floated as a reunion with Cruise after A Few Good Men; sex scenes between Claire and Ethan were written and cut, a kiss appears in the trailer that is not in the film, and despite the grabbing and handsiness and an implied night together there is not much chemistry.
  • 1996 was the year of Striptease for Demi Moore, so it would have been a left turn; Claire is called an underwritten part and one of the weakest aspects, a Russian doll for Jim's motivations in a Hitchcockian way; Susan Sarandon is also mentioned, but the objection is that Moore is too visceral and signals a fight scene is coming, whereas Claire's sphinx-like quality serves the narrative, so maybe Emmanuel Bayer (as transcribed) is right for it after all.
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48:44

Half-Assed Internet Research

Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz's original script killed the original IMF team including Peter Graves; a near-bankrupt ...

Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz's original script killed the original IMF team including Peter Graves; a near-bankrupt Apple tied in with PowerBooks and a web adventure game; the Langley heist homages Dassin's Topkapi and Rififi; Ethan Hunt's name may honor Watergate's Howard Hunt

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 00:48:44Read transcript
  • The original script came from two earlier writers. Katz and Huck (Gloria and Willard, as transcribed) reportedly opened it with the original IMF team, including Peter Graves, on a mission with their youngest member played by Cruise, all killed except him, leaving him to solve who killed his team, which may be another reason the older stars did not return.
  • Apple was almost bankrupt at release and tried to get cool again through a corporate tie-in, with PowerBook laptops in the movie, plus an early promotional website called the Mission Impossible Web Adventure, sinking about $15 million into it; things worked out for Apple.
  • The Langley heist homages the Jules Dassen (as transcribed) classics Top Copy and Rafifi (as transcribed); some think Ethan Hunt's name is a sly tribute to Howard Hunt, the former CIA spy involved in the Watergate break-in, and Ethan Hunt is called a perfect, anonymous yet fun-to-say name.
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52:32

Probably Unanswerable Questions

Is the McLaughlin Group senator the real Senator Walter or Ethan Hunt in the mask? Why not make a mask of William Don...

Is the McLaughlin Group senator the real Senator Walter or Ethan Hunt in the mask? Why not make a mask of William Donloe and steal the disc? Was Jon Voight in shape to run across a high-speed train?

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 00:52:32Read transcript
  • Rolled over from unintentional comedy: is the Senator John Walter on the McLaughlin Group the real senator or Ethan Hunt in the mask; one theory is that Walter is real but secretly an IMF agent whose skepticism of the intelligence community is a simulation of dissent, letting the IMF use his identity.
  • Three potentialities for Senator Walter are laid out: an elected human man who likes fishing and does not know about his Prague gala attendance, a blue dog Democrat from Virginia not on alt.fish, alt.bible or alt.arms; a co-opted intelligence officer serving Virginia while working for the IMF; or a wholly constructed 65-year-old citizen played entirely by Tom Cruise when needed, all for 60 grand a year.
  • Follow-ups: would you watch a 1996 movie about an old senator played by Tom Cruise now, why is Cruise not returning to the Walzer IP (as transcribed), and why was his Tropic Thunder transformation praised over his work as John Walter.
  • If Ethan can make a mask of anyone's face, why not make a mask of William Donlow (as transcribed), who worked inside the vault, and steal the disc; the question was asked before and nobody has a satisfactory answer.
  • Was Jon Voight in any shape to traipse across a high-speed train; he looks fitter than ever in the parachute suit and black SWAT outfit, possibly with a stunt double, so when he pretends to be hurt in the coffee shop he is lying, and when he strikes Ethan there is a weird intense physical energy, a bit of old man strength.
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55:47

Picking Nits

Why Jim shoots Claire first on the train; Jim and Claire's confounding relationship; Krieger's end game; what Kittred...

Why Jim shoots Claire first on the train; Jim and Claire's confounding relationship; Krieger's end game; what Kittredge's deal with Max amounts to; the helicopter in the train tunnel; what Max and Phelps are actually after

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 00:55:47Read transcript
  • Nobody understands why Jim had to shoot Claire first: she only asks whether they really have to kill Ethan and tells him not to, and he guns her down on the train, which makes no sense; maybe Emmanuel Bayard (as transcribed) did not want to return, or the film needed to underline that Phelps is deranged, but it remains confusing.
  • Jim and Claire's relationship confounds the hosts: on reuniting with her, Phelps immediately disparages her to Ethan in crude terms and later tells Ethan to take her, which seems unnecessary when Ethan has been a gentleman apart from the handsy magic trick; the joke is that De Palma has a problem with sexual politics.
  • Krieger's end game is unclear beyond living and dying by the black market and cutting out the middleman; and what really happens at the end when Kittredge offers Max a deal, implying she has information they can use, after which Ethan is simply back in the mix.
  • The science of flying a helicopter into the train tunnel is very tough, even if Krieger's earlier boast about flying one into the lobby of Fort Knox sets it up, and where he would have learned that is unknown; when the other train comes the other way the film cuts to a hard close-up on Ethan's face because it is illogical.
  • Flagged earlier during the Redgrave discussion as a flaw or a nitpick: every villain in the series has elusive aims, this film has Phelps and Max, and whether they are just shifting money around is unclear.
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