Mission: Impossible (1996) Review

Mission: Impossible (1996)

Mission: Impossible follows agent Ethan Hunt, who, after a mole sting operation leaves his team dead, goes rogue from the CIA, hoping to draw out the mole and clear his name in the process. 

Feels weird that it’s taken me this long to finally watch Mission: Impossible (or any of them for that matter) but here we are and I’ll admit, I quite liked it. Loosely related to the television series of the same name, there’s a very refreshing quality to this that you won’t often find in late 90s/early 00s spy flicks, which were either thinly veiled comedies or super action blockbusters. With the first M:I though, there’s truly an element of secrecy and conspiracy, ya know, how spies should be. After being framed as a mole and watching his whole team tragically die in front of him, Ethan makes it his mission to uncover who the real mole is, a mission that involves plenty of carefully placed deception by stealing the very information he was tasked with keeping safe in an effort to identify the real traitor. 

And while obvious (at least for me; it’s always the mentor figure) who the mole was from the jump, Ethan’s plan still makes for a hell of a ride, right down to it’s fiery finale. As I mentioned though, many of this film’s strengths lie in how refreshing of a suspenseful thriller this manages to be, despite the spy movie landscape of the time telling them to go bigger (it is called Mission: Impossible), which is a testament to De Palma’s incredible direction and pacing. 

We get a pretty solid cast too, starring Vanessa Redgrave, Emilio Estevez, Kristin Scott Thomas, Jean Reno, Henry Czerny, Emmanuelle Béart, Ving Rhames, Jon Voight, and Tom Cruise. Cruise actually works wonders in his subtlety here, never giving off action-y badass vibes, just an agent out to clear his name, demonstrating his wits and abilities in the process. 

Mission: Impossible, directed by Brian De Palma, is an incredibly refreshing spy thriller that avoids the ridiculous pitfalls of the genre (at the time) for a more grounded, character driven approach in order to prove Ethan’s worth as an agent. 

8.1/10