‘Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation’: The world belongs to the rogue

By Igmar P. / Café Cinéfilo

The summary. Now considered as agents gone rogue, the fearless spy Ethan Hunt and just a handful of his colleagues are now faced with their most daring mission yet: Trying to thwart the plans of a criminal mastermind and his network of double agents, who are bent on creating world chaos through a series of terrorist acts aimed at breaking the diplomatic relations between the USA and its allies, in “Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation”.        

Poster in English for 'Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation'

What initially seemed to be the routine reception of his next assignment, after Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) walked into a records store while in a European city, soon becomes an ambush for Hunt, in which he ends up being captured by unknown assailants.  

Later, Ethan wakes up in an underground cell where he begins to be tortured and questioned by a group of agents, who Hunt suspects are part of a terrorist organization known as The Syndicate, which Hunt has been investigating for months.

But then, a mysterious woman named Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) helps Hunt escape from captivity, without giving him explanations as to why she is helping him. Meanwhile, in the United States, a committee of government officials is about to dissolve the Impossible Missions Force (IMF) and redirect all its personnel and resources to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).    

Now Ethan Hunt, alone and without back up in Europe, but determined to uncover and capture the brain behind The Syndicate and thus taking down that organization, enlists the help from his friend Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), initially so that he may help Hunt to stop the next criminal act of The Syndicate, which involves the assassination of an important political figure.   

Soon thereafter Hunt and Benji are joined by the IMF agents William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) and Luther Stickwell (Ving Rhames), who proceed to work together with Hunt without the authorization of the new acting chief of the IMF, Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin), of the CIA, who is convinced that Hunt has turned into a dangerous rouge agent who must be captured at all costs.  

The review: With a sharp and well thought out script, co-written by academy award winner Christopher McQuarrie (“The Usual Suspects”, 1995), and Drew Pearce, “Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation”, also directed by McQuarrie, is a good and very entertaining film, as thrilling and interesting as its most immediate predecessors, “Mission: Impossible 3” and “Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol.”

In addition, this most recent adventure for the Impossible Missions Force (IMF) agents is filled with a growing suspense element, which increases gradually as the film moves forward, and it also makes us remember with a little bit of nostalgia some of the best episodes of the old TV series from the 1960’s, created by Bruce Geller and starring Peter Graves.

Something that I enjoyed quite a lot in this new outing of “Mission: Impossible” is how Christopher McQuarrie used some elements of that old TV show, such as the assignment of the latest mission at the beginning of the film. In the TV series we always saw Jim Phelps (Peter Graves), the IMF team leader, walking into the most unusual of places and finding the package with the new mission, hiding somewhere.
In the sequels 2, 3 and 4 we saw something similar to that, but not as faithful to the spirit of the classic TV series as is shown now in “Rogue Nation”.        

This time around, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), who can be considered as the team member who specialized in disguises in the old TV show and who is now the leader of the group, after the events that took place in the first motion picture of “Mission: Impossible,” is shown in the first scenes of “Rogue Nation” walking into an old records store in an European city, where after exchanging some comments and questions of jazz connoisseurs with the attractive store attendant, proceeds to go inside a private listening booth to play a vinyl record, which of course has the new assignment.      

It’s inevitable not to feel nostalgia after hearing the words “Good evening Mr. Hunt,” after Ethan starts to play the record with the mission. Afterwards something happens in this scene, which I will not divulge any further. 

A teaser poster for 'Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation'

Christopher McQuarrie is an expert when it comes to creating an atmosphere filled with suspense in a motion picture. It was precisely the award-winning original script written by McQuarrie that kept us glued to every word (even the stammering!) that came out of Roger “Verbal” Kint’s mouth in the crime drama “The Usual Suspects” (1995), directed by Bryan Singer. Kevin Spacey won an Oscar for that memorable role. Throughout that film, the detectives on the screen (as well as us, the viewers) were haunted by a burning question: “Who is Keyser Soze?”

Now Christopher McQuarrie brings to “Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation” precisely that element of gradually increasing suspense, focusing it on the film's main characters. Who is really the agent Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson)? Is she an ally or an enemy? Does she really want to help Hunt bring down The Syndicate or does she have a double objective in mind? But wait, there’s more: Is Ethan Hunt allowing his personal feelings of vengeance against The Syndicate get in the way of doing his duty as an IMF agent? And will he put the mission in jeopardy as a result of this?       

But while this questions float around the mind of the viewer, the action on the screen never decreases not even for an instant. Hunt and company are always busy doing stuff, whether it be setting up a surveillance task in an opera concert, or chasing the bad guys on motorcycles at high speed all over a city or even planning what could very well be the most impossible of missions yet.  

Now the challenge for Hunt and friends involves the theft of a crucial source of information, which is safely guarded in a vault that has the most advanced and sophisticated security system the IMF team is about to discover. Forget about the disguises, the false fingerprints and hacking into the system; none of that will work this time. It appears the only covert access to that vault lies submerged under an impressive amount of water.

The producers and Tom Cruise scored an excellent point in choosing Christopher McQuarrie to co write and direct “Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation,” since McQuarrie, in this film, manages to keep very much alive the public interest for this franchise. And not only that; it brings the spirit of the old TV show closer to the new generations, while leaving us the viewers craving for even more adventures of Ethan Hunt and his IMF team.      

Rating: * * *

Main cast and details

Title: ‘Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation’

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Screenplay: Christopher McQuarrie, Drew Pearce

Country: USA

Year: 2015

Genre: Action / Adventure 

Cast: Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Sean Harris, Jeremy Renner, Ving Rhames and Alec Baldwin

Rated: PG-13

Running Time: 2 hours and 12 minutes