An Impossible Mission Force team is sent to Prague on a quest to capture footage of a rogue agent stealing the CIA NOC list. As members of the team mysteriously die off one by one, Ethan Hunt (played by Tom Cruise) finds out the whole operation was a set up. He goes underground and contacts Max (Vanessa Redgrave), the arms dealer who triggered the ruse to begin with. Hunt then goes on a daring adventure with a new, hastily assembled team of disavowed IMF agents in order to steal the real NOC list from Langley, Virginia. By doing so, he hopes to arrange a meeting with the person pulling the strings and, thereby, clearing his name by uncovering the real mole the CIA is looking for.
One of the greatest action films of 1990’s, Mission: Impossible’s clever plot, story twists and spy-thriller-inside-spy-thriller dynamics are all hallmarks of the franchise and laid the groundwork for decades of films after it. Prior to this Brian De Palma masterpiece, action movies were very straight forward: an unlikely or unsuspecting hero encounters a bad guy, the bad guy wreaks havoc and then the hero jumps through hoops to stop the bad guy. But then Mission: Impossible came out in 1996 and elevated the entire genre. Audiences started realizing there could be more to an action movie than just blowing stuff up.
In retrospect, Cruise hasn’t settled into the character yet but he’s 95% there. There are some overacting moments that distract from the rest of the scene but, overall, he plays it well. Ving Rhames shines as the soft-spoken Luther Stickell, Emmanuelle Béart is perfect as Claire Phelps and Jon Voight makes everything he’s in better.
The first installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise sits right next to Terminator 2, Speed, The Fugitive, True Lies, The Matrix and Crimson Tide on the Best Action Films of the 90’s shelf. An absolute must watch.
JKG SCORE: 9.0
Untitled Film Project 