Lalo Schifrin, Meet Danny Elfman.

Rating: 8/10 (22 February 2011)

The plot of the original summer blockbuster re-imagining of Mission: Impossible is a virtually unfathomable maze of post-Cold War duplicity, though the fine points barely count. It's all an arrangement for exciting chase sequences and a skilled computer theft procedure, intercut with that most dependable of spy movie supplies, the midnight meeting under a street lamp in a frosty foreign city.
Cruise is Ethan Hunt, specialist spy, whose mission is to stop the stealing of a computer file holding the aliases and true identities of all of America's infiltrators. It's not sufficient to just obstruct the guy. Cruise and his team are supposed to snap pictures of the opponent taking the information, and then pursue him until he drops it off. This procedure concerns a check list of Cold War chestnuts: Bifocals with incorporated TV cameras, hidden microphones, laptop computers, agents in ornate disguise, exploding cars, shankings, shootings, bodies falling into a river, and the like. Naturally the entire sequence focuses on an embassy party in Prague.
Self-consciously baroque and formal as always, this is nevertheless still certainly one of director Brian De Palma's very best works. Rather than trying to bring his preference for stylistic flamboyance over substance to material of substance, Mission: Impossible is perfectly suited for him, as it affords him the ample playground for his often subtly deceptive and reflexive exploration of voyeurism. It comprises a chain of impressive set pieces. Any deeper engagement with the film is overpowered by the strict adherence to spectacle.
There are so many double-blinds in the first 45 minutes that we're trained to judge nothing and no one merely by facade, not even their facades, because they may be ornate Adrian Messenger-style latex masquerade. And the drive of the visuals stops us from asking commonsense questions like, Is actually reproducing a computer file onto another disc the one way to get it? Don't you guys have hackers? Like most De Palma films, this Tom Cruise vehicle is all polished lather and procedural dexterity. The characters are not terribly intriguing, save Vanessa Redgrave as an information broker, who extracts a trace of melancholy in a film too impulsive for apathy of any sort. The assorted stratagems of Cruise and his associates and enemies don't hold water under analysis. And that makes little difference.
This is a movie that lives in the moment, and we must be in the moment to take pleasure in it. Any off-putting doubts from earlier in the film must be resolutely subdued.
De Palma is proficient at grand, slow-moving vistas of tension and violence. This $100 million action film gives him the chance for more modern versions of the vintage wordless action sequence. There are three here: The introductory scenario at the ambassadors' soirée, a fragile feat of computer burglary and an absolutely incredible bullet-paced climactic chase that I would call a masterpiece were it not scored overmuch. It's where a helicopter trails the express London-Paris line into the Chunnel with Cruise and the now revealed ultimate villain clutching on top of it.
The computer burglary scene will strike a loud chord with anyone who has seen Rififi or Topkapi, both by Jules Dassin, who became renowned for his extensive heist sequences executed in utter silence. Topkapi also shares in common with Mission: Impossible the method of hanging a thief from an opening in the ceiling to circumvent ultra-sensitive security mechanisms on the floor. This time, De Palma gives us a computer safe room engineered so that sirens will wail at any sound above a particular decibel level, any weight on the floor, any variation in temperature.
Naturally it's handy that the decibel level is set high enough that it isn't activated by the sound of a computer copying a disc, which is exactly what it should be resisting. Fitting, too, that the infra-red rays safeguarding the ceiling hatch can be so expediently contended with. And quite opportune for the audience that the rays are made discernible to the untrained eye. If you want to see infra-red rays thoroughly explored in a caper, watch Grand Slam.
The main thing is, Cruise looks hip and holds our interest while doing clever things that we don't completely grasp, doing them so rapidly and with so much elegance that we put our questions on the back burner and glide with enjoyment. When the movie ends, it turns out there wasn't anything apart from the wind. Our relief, apparently, is that we enjoy ourselves.