Review #1,371: 'Mission: Impossible' (1996)

It's hard to believe that Brian De Palma's Mission: Impossible is now 22 years old. What's even harder to believe is the fact that this franchise is still going, and stronger than ever, with the sixth entry into the series, Mission: Impossible: Fallout, about to be released this very week. Despite some wobbles since, the series got off to a very strong start in the hands of De Palma who, while pissing off a few hardcore fans of the original television show with some bold character decisions, delivered a thriller that really set the heart racing. It's also aged incredibly well. While the gizmos now seem somewhat dated (the McGuffin is a floppy disk), there was always an old-fashioned broodiness about the film that has given it a timeless quality. Of course, it's all just an excuse to make Tom Cruise run, and run he certainly does.

Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) and his Impossible Mission Force (IMF) are on a mission in Prague to retrieve a list of secret agents' real identities. The mission goes awry, with most of the team (which also consists of Emmanuelle Beart, Kristin Scott Thomas and Emilio Estevez) winding up dead, leaving only Ethan Hunt (Cruise) to figure out what the hell just happened. With Hunt the only survivor, IMF director Kittridge (Henry Czerny) suspects him to be the mole within the agency he has been trying to smoke out for years. Hunt flees to try and uncover the mole himself, finding a lead in the mysterious Max, a contact the mole had been communicating with using passages from the Bible. Finding himself disavowed by the government and without a team to help him, Hunt starts recruiting, finding a brand new team in fellow disavowed agents Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and Franz Krieger (Jean Reno). Their first mission is to break into the CIA headquarters in Langley and steal back the list, in the hope of finding the rat and proving Hunt's innocence.

There are three key set-pieces in Mission: Impossible that perhaps no other director is better suited for. De Palma is the master of long, tension-building moments of suspense, and Hunt's infiltration of the CIA is an iconic moment for good reason. He must enter into a room from above, copy a file while dangling from a wire, and exit within a set time. Any noise above a certain decibel level will trigger an alarm and cause a total lockdown, as will any additional weight on the floor. Filmed in complete silence, it's a masterfully choreographed sequence. As a trickle of sweat makes its way to the rim of Hunt's glasses, you won't exhale until it's all over. De Palma is better known for leaning of Hitchcockian influences, but his approach here is more Jules Dassin. There are other exciting moments too, and thank God, as the plot is about as baffling as its lead stars affiliation with Scientology. The thrills also distract from some pacing issues, which normally arise when Hunt is left to mope around in a hotel room, and some revelations you can see coming from a mile off (the shifty, knife-wielding Frenchman is a baddie, really?). Mission: Impossible really only has its momentum, so it's best just to strap in and go with it.


Directed by: Brian De Palma
Starring: Tom Cruise, Jon Voight, Emmanuelle Béart, Henry Czerny, Jean Reno, Ving Rhames, Kristin Scott Thomas, Vanessa Redgrave
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,309: 'Darkest Hour' (2017)

2017 saw cinema give us the complete Dunkirk experience: first with Christopher Nolan's ground-level, soldiers-eye view of one of the main turning points of World War II, and later with this, Joe Wright's Darkest Hour, told from the point-of-view of the stuffy politicians back at home shouting at each other in dark rooms. While over 300,000 brave men waited for evacuation as the German army closed in around them, Winston Churchill had just been sworn in as prime minister and was left with the unenvious task of dealing with Adolf Hitler, a man Churchill's predecessor Neville Chamberlain had been hoping to strike a peace deal with. As history tells it, Churchill knew the futility of trying to reason with a murderous tyrant and that the only outcome was war, but he had to rally his cabinet and deal with the Dunkirk situation at the same time.

Simply put, Darkest Hour is pure Oscar-bait. Ignoring the question of why yet another biopic of one of Britain's most iconic historic figures is needed in a year that had already seen the Brian Cox-starring Churchill, this is another shameless entry into the ongoing series of middlebrow British period dramas which also include fellow awards-favourites The Queen and The King's Speech. Sparing us the full biopic treatment, Darkest Hour starts in 1940 just as Churchill is chosen to lead the country in the wake of Chamberlain's ousting. Played by Gary Oldman in heavy prosthetics, the man who enjoys champagne with his breakfast and dictates his letters still dressed in his pyjamas charges into the situation like a bull in a china shop, out-shouting those who attempt to fast-track peace talks or undermine him. It's a good performance, and one that will almost definitely win Oldman an overdue Best Actor award. But it still feels like an impression, and despite some attempts to humanise the man with moments of self-doubt, we never break the tough, saggy surface.

Joe Wright has touched on the events of Dunkirk before with 2007's Atonement, a surprisingly moving and powerful love story that featured an impressive tracking shot along the battered beach. Atonement felt like it was created by a film-maker, while Darkest Hour feels like it was sculpted by a committee hoping to overcrowd their posters with lists of their awards nominations. It feels artificial to the point of patronising, with long shots of the smiling working class going about their business as Churchill cruises by trying to get a feel of the public's mood. This is later taken even further he ventures into the London underground on his own to chat with the common folk in a scene that is so out of place it feels like nails down a blackboard. Even worse are the brief moments of battle. CGI bombs are dropped and followed by the camera in a scene that harks back to Pearl Harbor. Impressive supporting turns by Ben Mendelsohn as King George IV and Ronald Pickip as a sympathetic, terminally-ill Chamberlain lighten the mood, while Kristen Scott Thomas, Lily James and Stephen Dillane do the most with what they are given as supportive wife, framing device and sneering villain, respectively. In these times of political uncertainty, Darkest Hour should have had me waving my fist with patriotic pride, but I could barely muster a twitch of the eyebrow.


Directed by: Joe Wright
Starring: Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas, Ben Mendelsohn, Lily James, Ronald Pickup, Stephen Dillane
Country: USA/UK

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #683: 'Only God Forgives' (2013)

After the surprising success, both critically and commercially, of 2011's Drive, Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn has furthered his auteur aspirations with his difficult follow-up, Only God Forgives. Refn admitted in an interview that he gets a kick out of screen violence to an almost fetishistic degree, and, like Drive, Only God Forgives has moments of nightmarish violence set in a seedy criminal underworld.

Set in Bangkok, Thailand, Ryan Gosling plays Julian, a reserved young man who runs an underground boxing club as a front for his drug dealing business. His older brother Billy (Tom Burke) sets out one night with self-destructive tendencies, and rapes and murders and 16 year-old girl. The girl's father takes personal vengeance and kills Billy. Julian sets out for revenge himself, but after hearing the reasons for his brother's murder, realises that some kind of justice has been achieved and lets the man go. But with the arrival of Julian's peroxide-blonde, acid-tongued mother Crystal (Kristin Scott Thomas), Julian's hand is forced.

For a director so obviously eager to prove to everyone that he's some kind of film-making genius, Only God Forgives is surprisingly familiar in tone. Refn has gone to Thailand to make a Korean movie, full of abstract plot devices, a basic revenge premise, and some squirm-inducing, yet cartoonish scenes of torture and murder. One thing that cannot be denied is that the film looks absolutely beautiful. Like Gaspar Noe's Enter the Void (2009), this is a film seeped in neon-porn, and it's amazing how a bold flash of blue or red can make a scene instantly more wonderful to look at.

But the set design and cinematography aside, this is disappointingly empty movie, full of long moments of existential pondering and comically bad dialogue. The movie's antagonist, a crooked police chief named Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm), slices his way to his own form of justice, using a sword to execute and dismember his unfortunate victims. He is meant to be a vengeful God to Julian's sinner, and his appearances on screen are meant to fill us with dread, but instead only serves as a warning that more violence will soon implode. As a sort of idiosyncrasy, Chang sings karaoke as his police force watch him silently. It comes across a bit like Dean Stockwell in Blue Velvet (1986), but here it seems pretentious and just rather silly.

It's a real love-it-or-hate-it type of movie. On one hand, you have the technical brilliance that helps create a sleazy, slightly unnerving world, but on the other, you have the fact that this is a straight-to-DVD plot with some rather laughable dialogue. Kristin Scott Thomas, playing against type, gets to use the phrase 'cum dumpster' at an uncomfortable dinner with Julian and his 'girlfriend' Mai (Yayaying Rhatha Phongam). It all just feels like Refn is simply trying to antagonise his audience, but he really only insults them.


Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas, Vithaya Pansringarm, Yayaying Rhatha Phongam
Country: Denmark/France/Thailand/USA/Sweden

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie