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 #839: 'Foxcatcher' (2014)

When it comes to depicting a real figure caught up in real events, the one aspect that movie's struggle with is really getting to the heart of it's character. Commonly, these characters are larger than life, and it takes a truly talented actor to bring them to life and an intelligent script to dig beneath their skin. Director Bennett Miller seem to have the magic touch. His three features have all been based on true-life stories. Philip Seymour Hoffman brought Truman Capote to life in Capote (2005), to the point where you believed the strange voice coming out of him wasn't a mere impersonation, but an embodiment. His second feature, Moneyball (2011) was a solid depiction of underdog coach Billy Bean (Brad Pitt), who changed baseball forever with his use of statistical analysis.

He's done it again with Foxcatcher, the shocking true tale of one man's madness amidst the quest for Olympic gold. Like with Moneyball, we are taken behind the scenes (or beyond the mat) of the sporting world, and the screen is flooded with the same damp, autumn colours as it was in Capote. It is melancholic but unsettling, as if slowly pumping up a balloon and waiting for it to burst. We first meet Olympic gold medallist Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum), scraping twenty bucks together by appearing in his brother's absence at a school to teach kids the values required to achieve a gold medal. He goes home and eats microwave noodles, and then it's back to the practice mat in preparation for the next tournament.

His luck seems on the rise when he is contacted by the mysterious John du Pont (Steve Carell), the head of a vastly wealthy dynasty who lives at his huge, beautiful Foxcatcher Farm. Curious, Mark goes to meet him and learns of du Pont's plans to make his farm the breeding ground of American wrestling. He instantly signs up, and Mark is given his own cabin and top-notch training facility. He is also given lots of cocaine, and soon submits to du Pont, at one point seen crouching in front of du Pont on his porch, like a well-trained guard dog. But du Pont is not satisfied with Mark alone - he wants his brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo), also an gold medallist - at Foxcatcher too. Only Dave has settled with his wife (Sienna Miller) and children in the suburbs and, as Mark points out, can't be bought. Du Pont cannot process this.

If you don't know the bizarre news story that came out of this arrangement, then it's best not to know. The film's foreboding is creeping. The introduction of John du Pont doesn't portray him as the strange, uncharismatic, and increasingly deranged man that he was; instead we see him at a distance, muttering pleasantries and looking down that huge nose of his. He doesn't convince as a wrestling coach, but Mark laps up the attention and luxury like any young man in his position would. When Dave eventually arrives, he sees du Pont for what he is - a man-child who inherited wealth, buying tanks to add to his military paraphernalia and living in fear of his reclusive mother (played by Vanessa Redgrave), wishing himself a leader of men without possessing any of the necessary skills required to be so. Only at this point, Mark has seen it too, but he also resents the success of his brother.

Miller and screenwriters E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman take all of this and makes it an analogy of modern America, where wealth inherited rather than earned still looms large over a country sworn to pursuing the dream and democracy. The performances are terrific. Carell and Ruffalo earned the Oscar nominations, but Tatum more than holds his own. In a scene just after a lost bout, Mark paces his room like a cage animal, suddenly bursting with rage and destroying a mirror with his head. Considering this was improvised on the spot by a dedicated Tatum, it really takes the breath away. Like the recent work of David Fincher, I believe that in the years to come, Foxcatcher will be studied as a window into our times and will be viewed as one of the finest American films of it's era.


Directed by: Bennett Miller
Starring: Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo, Sienna Miller, Vanessa Redgrave
Country: USA

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #359: 'Wilde' (1997)

Every now and then in cinema, a performance comes along that seems so right and so fitting, that it is almost as if  the actor was born to play the role. Robert DeNiro as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976), Max Schreck in Nosferatu (1922) or Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend (1945) are examples of career-defining performances, where you couldn't imagine any other actor filling the role. Okay, so Stephen Fry's performance here as the tragic poet, author and social rebel Oscar Wilde is hardly the greatest performance ever, but it seems that no other actor could capture the authenticity of his performance. Fry is a well-known author, intellectual and mostly comedic actor, with a deep-rooted love for literature and history. He is also homosexual with a history of depression and feelings of social misplacement, much like Wilde himself.

Brian Gilbert's film follows Wilde from his early marriage to Constance Wilde (Jennifer Ehle), which produced two children, until his sexual awakening with lifelong friend Robbie Ross (Michael Sheen). He describes his awakening as "being like a city under siege for years, and then the floodgates are opened". He has massive success with his only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and his social comedy The Importance of Being Earnest, when he meets his true love Lord Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas (Jude Law), a spoiled youth living under the tyrannical reign of his father, the Marquess of Queensbury (Tom Wilkinson). The Marquess' disapproval of the 'friendship' between his son and the well-known provocateur leads to a libel court case, which sees Wilde imprisoned for social indecency.

Unlike many biopics, Gilbert wisely chooses to stay away from detailing his work, and instead keeps the focus on the man himself. This allows the film to explore the mind of the subject, and a complex and vastly intelligent mind it is. The main focus though is of the social attitudes towards homosexuality (especially the relationship between an older and a younger man) and the prudishness towards the idea of following pleasure rather than duty. Wilde states in the court case that he is championing the ancients, the Greeks, and this now-taboo relationship was the focus of many a celebrated academic, namely Plato, who used it as a focal point of one of his key philosophy works. Society, it would seem, had gone back in time.

There are many great performances here from a hugely talented British cast (which also includes Vanessa Redgrave, Ioan Gruffudd and Zoe Wanamaker), namely from the always-excellent Sheen. He is now established as a great impressionist (his performances as Kenneth Williams and David Frost are near-perfection), but here he is stripped-down and gives his best performance as the dedicated Robbie Ross, a man who is in love with Wilde but remains loyal despite the love not being returned. But ultimately, this is Fry's film. Years of seeing him as quizmaster in panel show QI has made me forget what a talented performer he is. If ever there was an argument made of re-incarnation, then there is no finer example than here. Apart from an uncanny resemblance, he seems to embody the very soul of Wilde.


Directed by: Brian Gilbert
Starring: Stephen Fry, Jude Law, Michael Sheen, Jennifer Ehle, Vanessa Redgrave, Tom Wilkinson
Country: UK/Germany/Japan

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie