Idea. What?
Hello and welcome back to Clear and Present Dudes, the podcast
where you've never seen me very upset.
I am joined as always by my good friends Rory O'Toole and Sonia
Bjorkson. Thank you for listening to
everyone who's listened to this is the podcast and left my
comments and ratings and so on. I just want to start with a
shout out. We, of course, this episode is
covering the 1996 film Mission Impossible, and it would be
remiss of us not to acknowledge that there is another podcast
out there which has covered this film over the course of several
100 episodes called Lights the Fuse, which is as near as you
can get to an official podcast where Mission Impossible start
out with a couple of fans who who's by sheer force of will and
commitments to the franchise have managed to get themselves
incredible access. And they put out hundreds of
hours of really good content about Mission Impossible.
And in the research for this episode, I listened to their
making of documentary episode for Mission Impossible in 1996.
Yeah, I just want to give a shout to that podcast.
Listen to it. If you want more better informed
takes about Mission Impossible, then listen to that.
If you want to hear three guys just just shooting the shit for
a for a couple of hours vaguely around the subject of Mission
Impossible, then yeah, please stay right here.
As I say, we're talking about Mission Impossible, 1996
American spy film directed by Brian De Palma, revisiting the
Brian De Palma well after last week's Touch on the
Untouchables. And it was produced by and stars
Tom Cruise from a screenplay by David Kep.
We'll talk about that in a short while.
And it's a reboot, of course, of the 1966 television series of
the same name. And it's an 88 sequel series.
And it is the first instalment of the the Mission Impossible
franchise, which of course now is a thundering behemoth made
famous known for before it's incredible death defying stunts
performed by Tom Cruise, the unbreakable man.
And no, not less known, a little bit less, I suppose, for it's
it's tight plotting and it's sort of spy thriller
credentials. And it's more just kind of like
an excuse to have a big stunt. But this movie stars the
aforementioned Tom Cruise, Jon Voight, Henry Cerny, Emmanuel
Bart, our bet, Sean Renault, Bing Raines who would come back
to be a series regular, Kristen Scott Thomas and Vanessa
Redgrave. And in this film we are
introduced to super spy Ethan Hunt as he seeks to uncover who
framed him for the murders of most of his IMF and possible
Missions Force team. And he becomes disavowed, which
happens to him in every single movie henceforth.
But. The man's an HR nightmare it.
Really is unhirable. Oh God.
Oh, Jesus. OK, cool.
I've done enough talking. Roy.
O'Toole. I will be going around the room.
So how do we? How did you find Mission
Impossible 1966? What's your history of the
movie? Oh God damn.
So I remember watching this film on on VHS literally decades ago.
And at the time I think maybe a lot of it was kind of lost on
me. And I spent most of my rewatch
over there night thinking, Oh my God, how good's this film?
How how how good is this film? Holy crap, dude.
I was enraptured by it when I watched it.
I was blown away by Can I say something?
And no one's going to get all mad.
Yeah, sure, this is safe space mate.
This, this film is incredibly 1970s in a very, very cool way.
It's got a massive, massive amount of shared DNA with
absolute bangers. Things like really is the
Condor, which we've obviously talked about in the pod before,
and I know what you're thinking because there's one particular
line in a particular telephone box, which is absolutely a
massive call back to it. The film is beautifully paced.
It's got extensive amounts of dialogue, which I love.
Some of the writing is absolute bars.
It really is. I mean, like at the risk of
being a total wife guy and mentioned my wife Amber a lot,
but she was a really good like kind of like Balala for films
because there was some lanes and being like physically sit up in
a nest and be like holy shit, bars and and yeah, yeah, she was
a nest man and and like just some of the lanes.
I think something she said to me was on lines of what why why
isn't this line being quoted constantly today?
Because it's so good. When it come to the quotes, I'll
be going able over it. The way it's shot is fantastic.
Yakking's great. It's just well, then kind of
like segment watching the second film and I was like very
different film belly and see in front and just yeah, it's a real
proper, intelligent, well written, twisty, turny spy
thriller. It doesn't rely too much on any
one thing. It doesn't rely too much on
gadgets like some like the late 90s James Bond films did.
It doesn't rely too much on someone being exceptionally good
at fighting and stuff like that. It's just spy craft and
storytelling. It's meant a significant amount
of reviews that like wrote big films like this anymore and they
don't to to to to an extent a greater or less from standard.
It was amazing. Two hours incredibly well spent
for me. Enriching.
Awesome. I've got some stuff to say about
your earlier points about the film we've seen, and it's simply
these vibes and stuff I'll come back to in a second.
Before I do that, let's ask Sonia Bjorks.
And how did you find Mission Impossible in 1996?
I'm just going to call it Mission Impossible.
Just Mission Impossible. How?
Do you find mission? Impossible.
No notes. No notes, Not a dry seat in the
house. Awesome.
Any any advances or just just no notes?
Well, I mean I haven't first watching on VHS is is pretty
much all I can add to that. I have I've been been sinful and
1st watched it digitally not quite not long ago as well.
Content wise, I don't have any anything to add.
I I obviously can't comment on the 70s mives possibly going on
in there, having not really been around all that long.
Not not not, not part of the man an ancient man like.
Like so. Yeah.
Come on. Well, listen, I I am clearly on
a podcast with with someone who who used to be Jesus's body
doable at some point. That's you or nobody looks like
Jesus. OK.
Yes, Mike, when you joined the Navy, did they already have
cars? Fuck me man, what's going on?
Oh my God, it's Sandya Brooks it off the top row.
I mean, there's just frantic fire at this point.
I mean, you guys at least still have hair left, so I think I'm
going to quit doing that for now.
I'm going to I'm going to say we're back to the 1970s stuff
because this is this blends nicely into the chat about the
production of the movie I want to get into.
So Roy O2 did you know that when so it was, it was Tom Cruise
whose idea it was to make this movie.
So he he and his agent, Paula Wagner, forms Cruise.
Wagner Productions, CW Productions, which is the
production company who made the movie with Paramount Power Bar,
owned the property for the Mission Impossible.
And Cruise was a big fan of the TV show growing up, loved it.
And he was looking to get it made.
And off the back of him doing the film in 1993 with Sydney
Pollack, director of of course, Fridy's the Condor.
He was really keen to get Sydney Pollack to direct it.
Pollack kind of said, no, this isn't really my my warehouse.
You know, I make movies like Tootsie, you know, I don't, I
don't do this kind of thing. And then like Cruz was like,
yeah, you do. We just made the we just made
the firm and you made Fridy's the Condor.
This is totally in your warehouse.
What are you talking about? You could absolutely make this
movie. Nonetheless, Pollack
respectfully declined the opportunity to make this movie
and steered him in the direction of Brian De Palma said, have I
got a guy for you? Brian De Palma is a good as a
good guy. And obviously Tom Cruise is a
big film nerd. He already knew and he's in the
industry. Obviously by this point he's,
you know, he's made it. Big role, was respected, huge
actor. Now this is 1995.
We're talking about when the movie production's happening in
93 when they're talking. So he's come off the back of a
few good men and obviously is just wrapped on the firm when
they're having these conversations.
Gets him in touch with Brian De Palma, who he meets Brian De
Palma the same year had just finished Carly.
It was way and obviously had a a long story career doing stuff
like blow out and that kind of thing.
And yeah, he was up for it. So they worked on the the the
sort of the idea for a couple of years and then sort of put it
together. They had some meetings about
who's going to write it, and the first guy who had a crack at the
screenplay was I think Stephen Zillaire, the guy who wrote
Schindler's List, incredibly so. He didn't actually write a
screenplay, though. He had some meetings with Brian
Zapalmer when he talked about it, kind of went through and
kicked some story ideas together, and I've come up with
a rough outline. I didn't commit it.
There was a few of the goes at writing the screenplay.
The guy who finally finished it, though, that was David Kepp and
David Kepp. Let's just take a little canter
through David Kepp's filmography, starting with 991
Toy Soldiers. Sean Astin.
Die hard in a boarding school. Death becomes her.
Jurassic Park, Carlito's Way. Yeah, The Shadow.
OK, then. Mission Impossible.
After this, he does The Lost World.
Jurassic Park, Snake Eyes, Stir of Echoes, Panic Room, Vitamin
with Tobey Maguire. All the Worlds in 2005 for
Steven Spielberg. Holy crap.
Unfortunately, Indiana Jones in the Kingdom of the Crystal
Skull. A bit of a whiff.
Jack Ryan, shallow recruit. Holy crap.
Christopher Pine. Everything comes back to Jack
Ryan, man. Everything comes back from he's
like, he's, he's the wellspring that started this whole thing,
man. 2017's The Mummy with Tom Cruise, 2023's in Jenna Jones
and the Dollar Destiny and he's had two movies with Steven
Soderbergh, Kimmy and Presents, which we talked about last week,
the Ghost movie and his last credit.
So we the last two did. Another one was Stephen sued a
big black bag. And then he did Jurassic Park
Rebirth, which didn't do so well but incredibly versatile.
And his latest project that's upcoming.
I don't know if you guys have seen anything about it yet.
Have you heard of Disclosure Day?
It's Steven Spielberg's, a new UFO movie.
He's doing huge cast. Emily Blunt, Joshua Connor.
It's in post production at the moment, but this was written by
David Kepp. Right.
I've, I've heard a tiny amount of buzz about disclosure there
just from like paranormal podcasts and stuff that I listen
to when I'm on my commute to work and stuff.
But I know very little about it apart from the risk.
Like sort of sort of like a kind of theory among some people that
Steven Spielberg has been kind of contracted to work towards
actual real disclosure of aliens.
And he was started off, he was hired for like the kind of soft
launch with Close Encounters of the Third kind of.
And now he's going on this disclosure day because, you
know. Via ET.
Via AT and I mean, it's you know what as out of the conspiracy
theories, It's an interesting one.
This is not a conspiracy theory podcast, but it's an interesting
one that like that the idea, the yet the idea that a president
could like bring in people from Hollywood to like soften the
blow from when they say, hey, guys, those aliens are real,
especially the knife alien. Watch out for him.
That takes part. Another thing we should talk
about actually is that today we are recording this pod on the
same day the teaser trailer for Alejandro in a Ritos new movie
Digger has just dropped with Tom Cruise in a black comedy role
and you don't even really see him in the trailer, which is
kind of weird. But this is the long totes kind
of return to proper Kino for some Cruise that we've been
talking about for a while, you know, kind of for what was
promised were the end of Mission Impossible.
He was going to come back and do some real movies again.
And like here we are. That sounds really to reductive.
The mission possible movies are real movies, obviously, like,
you know, I mean, I mean like challenging cinema Keno film bro
letterboxed. So, but yeah, if you've seen
that yet, the the the. I've not know.
I've been working like crazy today and I've had a bunch of
crap to do. My life's insane.
This few days and few next days. Fair 1.
It's like about 25 seconds long. I don't have time.
For that time was fucking money that I've gotten on, you see.
Like it's just like a shot pans up as I could put a bluesy riff
plane and you see like a space or dunk on the ground and it's
like digger and then that's amazing.
And. Then you see like him, his legs
come past and he's wearing like these long cowboy boots.
But yeah, shorts, but with like short shorts.
I just like dum dum. And then there's a whole bit
where it cuts to him like on what appears to like appear, it
looks like with like a bollard, like a handrail kind of thing.
And he stands upon it and kind of like does like a some sort of
dance with it, with the, with the digger with a spade.
And it's like Tom Cruise is digger.
That's all it says this is. And it's like, it's like we are
so back. Yes.
So back, Boys cruise, cruise boys cruises.
We are so back. Good morning, Mr Phelps.
This is your mission, should you choose to accept it.
Should you or any member of your IM force be caught or killed,
the secretary will disavow all knowledge of your actions.
Ethan Hunt will be your point man, as usual.
Good luck, Jim. This series always.
I miss the voice of the guy. Yeah.
This is, this is like the it's cool, but it's like a, it's
almost like a DVD kind of trailer.
Yeah. Doesn't feel like a trailer
you'd see in the movie there. Yeah.
Yeah, buddy, it's good. But it kind of does like what
all the movies after this would do.
In fact, I think the movie does it.
So the opening credits for each Mission Impossible movie shows
you what's going to happen in the movie you're about to watch.
You see that? Yeah.
That was that was crazy.
I noticed that. And it's kind of like that.
It's a little bit like that. It's like, well, here's like
every big explosion. Here's like every cool scene.
Just for a split second, there was.
Definitely a point in the 90s when trailers were just, I mean,
that's got pretty much every big set piece from the film, right?
And there was a point I remember when trailers were just like,
this just sucks, man. This is like this is all the
good bits, the film, the movie. Oh I will say that today I read
the screenplay for the movie as well.
People may or may not know that the the Mission Impossible
movies after this after I would say after the first 3, so from 4
onwards. So Ghost Protocol, Rogue Nation,
Fallout and you know, the two dead reckonings or Dead
Reckoning and Final Reckoning from then on they kind of each
of them famously have like 1 humongous stunt that is like the
big stunt that everyone knows about.
It's part of the marketing beforehand.
You, you wind up seeing like making of featurettes about how
they do that stunt before even the movies come out, you know,
and it was very openly discussed by, by by Cruz and Christian
Macquarie, who became like the director of them after the last
few that what they would do is they would get a room and they
would talk like, what's the cool, what's the craziest stunt
we can come up with? Like what's the biggest thing we
can do? And then we're going to do that.
And then they kind of make a movie around it to the point
where, and you'll notice this, if you watch like Dead Reckoning
and Final Reckoning, like they'll have them do all their
dialogue scenes where they talk about like the plot moving
forward and like small rooms like so at films in tight close
up. So that if when they're making
the movie, they decide they want to take it in a slightly
different direction, they can just reshoot those pretty easily
because they're not like on location, looking over a great
Vista on a certain day with certain lighting outside, but
the sun going down like they're in a small room that they can
control the lighting off so they can do that kind of thing.
It's really interesting. So it was kind of interesting to
have a look at this movie, obviously being the first one
and see the screenplay. And it's pretty much like what
they shot, almost like there's there's very few.
This is this is David Kepp's final shooting scripts, to be
fair. So this is what the last, this
is the one they would have taken to them to say, I couldn't get
anything earlier. So this is almost pretty much
exactly what they say. And it probably means that this
is kind of why this story's plot I think holds together pretty
well. Like you were saying earlier on,
this is a pretty tightly plotted thriller.
I I agree with that. I I also think that this movie
is a lot goofier than I remember it being.
I will think of this as being like the serious one at the
start and then I watched it. Like some of this stuff is
fucking dumb as fuck. Like, what the fuck?
Yeah, I mean. It's yeah, some of it's pretty
silly. It's not like, like it's not
insane levels of grit and realism because it kind of
wouldn't be fun. I mean, the the mission of the
TV series itself was, it was, it was fun, you know, like, yeah,
exactly. Yeah.
It was Cold War. It was it disguises, you know,
people clotting about gadgets and things.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
And Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy. This this is not.
So This movie starts with what would become a standard thing in
the Mission Impossible movies. Not every single one of them
does it. But if more than one of them
does it, a scene where they have a ginormous fake out, and that's
a guy being questioned because he's woken up.
What he thinks is a hotel room with like a dead prostitute on
the bed, covered in blood. And he's covered in blood and a
Russian mobster's walked in. He's going to help him clean it
all up. But he needs some information
1st and he slaps it about a little bit.
And then when he gets information he needs someone, a
woman comes in, gives him a shot, and it knocks him out.
And then they do the cool like, Mission Impossible thing where
the Russian gangster pulls off his face mask.
You know, it's Tom Cruise. And then some, some other guys
just come in, like pull the walls apart and, oh, it was just
a pretty fab room. And it's all set up to get the
information they need. And Jack's meaningless of us
sitting there with, like, a search engine open, ready to
type in the name they get so they can get all the information
about the guy. And it's really cool.
Navigator. Awesome.
It does actually make an appearance.
Netscape Navigator does make an appearance in this film.
And I was just I was watching. It's like the Leonardo DiCaprio
meme, you know, like pointing at the TV.
It's like my God, fucking Netscape Navigator.
I remember using that thing. Shut up Sonya, you get a call me
over again. But I loved, I thought it was
really cool. So.
There is. I'm going to get this wrong, I
think. I think it's Mission Impossible.
Fallout has a really similar scene at the beginning.
There's. There's there's a fucking
amazing episode of the lone gunman that starts out with this
kind of like fake out room kind of thing, which which involves a
character for a little older guy doing some just insane.
Why a few shit like flyer on wires to and do martial arts.
It's insane, that's for sure. We should consider at some point
doing a special on because it's bonkers.
It's just it's just silly thriller hastes.
It's so funny. X-Files for people who don't
know it's The X-Files spin off and the the three the three
characters Alun Gunman who help out Mulder sometimes because
they have like big conspiracy theorists vibes and the first
episodes kind of predicted 911 by.
Literally fucking six months. Messed up, very messed up.
Episode 1 of the Lone Gun series involves a government plot to
remotely hijack an airliner and flag it into the World Trade
Centre. So it's not even like kind of
how you could argue that argue that Tom Clancy sort of
predicted with the end of that of an hour on the pilot, flies
as 747 into the Capitol building.
But then like 2 episodes later, there's this like episode that's
like a ridiculous eel in comedy when when Frohicky has like go
undercover as the lost son of a Nazi collaborator lady.
And then I think an episode later there's a whole heist when
they've got like break a monkey that's super intelligent out of
a research facility. Such a fucking good Shorty.
That's amazing, man. We should we should cover that
you wouldn't need. To at this point now, we've kind
of foreshadowed it, yeah. OK, so we have our intro
sequence and then we get their actual mission.
So Jim Phelps is in a plane and the air of his desk comes up to
him with a This is another classic bit of Mission
Impossible stuff with a little video that plays the mission
between term and His mission, should he choose to accept it,
is to stop a rogue agent called Alexander Glitzen from stealing
the CIA's knock non official cover, which reveals the
identities of all the undercover agents in Europe.
And then we. Got a cool little mission
briefing scene where we meet the team and I like a good team
meeting. What do you what do you think of
this one? Remember like when we talked
about the the Op Centre team and how we kind of introduced all
those guys and it seemed really forced in a natural even.
Now I'm just feeling the pain of of of that OP centre team
introduction. I like them.
I liked how it was kind of in the form of like, it's not like
a meeting, like it's just kind of like it felt very natural,
very naturalistic. Someone I thought was, and
obviously because this is, this is a spoiler cast.
So we know that the team's going to essentially be almost
entirely wiped out in in like a few minutes.
So I can say this that we are going to see a lot of them
because they're going to die. But it's it seems a bit ahead of
its time and outside of the 90s that there's more than one woman
on the team. And the one woman on the team
isn't just a really hot infiltrator who was like
technical bondage gear or whatever.
Because I mean, you know, there was there was a lot of kind of
shit, right? And of like women in through
that kind of woman. There still is a bit of a bit.
It was nice to say that there's a team when the chicks outnumber
the dudes, you know, pretty much because I mean like the people
who are doing active stuff and boots on the ground.
There's what there's three women, two dudes, so interesting
to say that there's the unbalance imbalance there.
It's pretty cool. It's interesting to say like the
banter between them, but gives a good it gives a good impression
that they've worked well together in the past.
Some some of the dialogue as well as just what was the one
about my wife's coffee that made me laugh?
Take it easy on my wife's coffee.
Or, or as I said out loud as I watched the film, take it easy
on my concerningly young wife's coffee.
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, I do think. That's a bit kind of thinking.
John Voight's like, if I sign on for this film, but I have a
young wife, I don't need to do a section with her.
I don't need to do anything with her.
I just want to look like I'm still really fucking virile.
You know, I've got a Jon Voight reputation to maintain here.
It's going to be a hot young wife and a good fucking go.
Yeah. Like I say, from that bit of a
go up on this and stuff, I think it's pretty cool.
Like, say team that's like more balanced between the sexes.
It's pretty cool and just, yeah, it's like the the scene, but get
on well with each other and a SEC.
I like these guys already, you know, the writing makes them
interesting. There's no one particularly
annoying in the team because it's it's it's easy.
Not like I'm right up, but I think it's probably an easy
cheesy move to make someone in in the team just be really
fucking irritating. I was like, hey, it's the crazy
guy. It's a guy does the funny, wacky
stuff and it's like they're all, they're all, they're all
professionals, you know? Yeah, they could have done it
with Emilio Estevez, his character, but they kind of pull
themselves back at the last minute, didn't they?
Yeah. He's almost.
Going there. Lasagna don't get any on you.
He has some silly sort of 1 liners and stuff like that, but
he, he's not like Waka Waka, I'm the funny guy, you know, So it's
cool. He's trying to get with
Christian Scott Thomas as well. Yeah.
He's not middle wood.
Come on. Yeah, It's interesting.
So that scene, right, is one of the only bits that's different
in the screenplay, right. So there's two bits.
So the the initial bit in Kiev with the the fake room, you
remember that Emmanuel Burt, who plays Claire, she gets
tranquillized. She's drugs so that she can
like, be like a plausibly dead hooker.
Yeah. And then she's been under for a
little bit too long and they wake her up and it's a bit like,
man, this is the last time we do this because that Ethan's like,
this is the last time we do this.
Because I was, I was really worried.
That kind of thing in the screenplay that's a little bit
more seriously, like this is the last time you do that on my
watch kind of thing. And he's like properly like
worked up about it. There's an awkward scene pretty
much straight away between Jim Phelps, Jon Voight and Ethan
Hunt. Straight away, where John Boy is
already kind of accusing Ethan of getting a little bit too
close to his hot young French wife Claire, who's at the
computer behind them, somehow seems to be the reference point
in the following exchange. This is it, Ethan.
How is Chicago Phelps? Wonderful.
Run into a convention of oil dealers at the Drake Hotel.
You hear the one about the astronaut who comes back from
the first manned flight to Mars after two years.
His wife's got a year old kid. So he says, all right.
Who was it? My friend Harry.
She says no. Was it my friend Sammy?
She says it wasn't Sammy. I suppose it was my other friend
Lou. No.
What's the matter? Don't you think I have friends
of my own? That is insanely boomer.
That's like wife bad father. I cannot click the boop.
Yeah, yeah. So straight away they're like
not getting on. Yeah.
And that's just taken and they take.
And I think that I'd been weird if I'd been in the movie because
then like it kind of puts you on this weird on edge thing.
There's a little bit still, right.
Full spoiler cast. We obviously know Jim Phelps
quite controversially turns out to be the bad guy in the movie.
And it's like pretty obvious, like straight away, if you if
you're paying attention to it, like that initial heist at the
beginning, it's really obvious that he's like the one
controlling the lift and stuff. The mission brief is they're
going to intercept this guy Alexander Goetzkin, who's got
the Goetzkin who's got the knock list on a floppy disc at this
embassy party thing in Prague. And they're going to have to go
in there, infiltrate the place, try and swap out the the list
and grab it and be gone. I guess we're into it.
It's the big heist, right? So everyone's got a job.
We're probably should count it through the team quickly so
everyone knows who they are. Not that really matters too much
because we're all going to die. But we've got Ethan Hunt, Tom
Cruise, who's played by played by Tom Cruise.
He's he's your point man on this operation.
We've got Kristen Scott Thomas who plays Sarah, who is like, I
guess his number 2 also on point.
And she's the kind of the one who's already in there is in the
cover mall kind of prepping the guy.
We've got Emmanuel Barr who's who's Claire, who's outside.
She's she's handling transport. She only got that job because
she's married to John Voigt, I think.
John Voy's. Obviously the commander in
charge, Jim Phelps, He's he's obviously rear actual
motherfucker. And and then you've got Hannah,
played by Ingeboro Dappu Kanata, who is the surveillance one
who's got the cool glasses on. Yeah, that was.
Meant that was so cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then, of course, we've got Emilio Estevez's Jack, who's
inside the building. Yeah.
Hacking into the terminals, moving doors and stuff.
And to do this, he has to sit on top of a lift.
Which is just incredibly cool. Something I love about this film
is that it exists in a time, both its setting and the time it
was written and filmed, when the idea of hacking is still kind of
in its infancy. And there's this, there's this
kind of crossover between physically having to be
somewhere to do it and doing things remotely.
And that's just so frigging cool, man.
Like it's digital and analogue at the same time is
electronically hacking things and stuff.
But it's got a deal about sitting on top of a lift.
It's mint. It's awesome when you when you
kind of compare it with just the hacking scenes in the second
film. But it's all very much done like
like remotely in like Wi-Fi kind of thing.
And after just four years, it takes out fair amount of the of
of the tension. The best kind of like electronic
hacking and freaking kind of scenes or ones when there's like
a ticking clock and a sort of dumb plays over the person who's
actually doing the hacking with a lot of properties.
You can't really do it in like kind of how can I put this
right? I'm going to go down weird
fucking rabbit hole here with cyberpunk properties like things
like Shadow Run and stuff like that.
You can have these like plot lines which have these great
concepts of like hacking in from like 20 miles away because
you've got things like dump shock and yeah, you're
physically plugged into the net. And if you're and if the ice
gets yeah, yeah, yeah, you get dub shock and your brain gets
fried. But when you've got a kind of
more modern kind of setup, when you're, well, I'm just going to
hack something from my laptop at a distance, the stakes don't
feel as high as merely W affairs sitting on top of the lift up,
crushed himself against the wall the first time the lift goes
down. I think it's incredibly cool.
You know, it is really. Cool.
And that whole concept is like how the main heist of the movie
kind of works. Yeah.
The whole the whole big deal is it doesn't matter what kind of
crypto you've got, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But here's the worst part. You have to be plugged into the
terminal because it's completely air gapped.
OK, cool. So this this heist kind of
happens. It's pretty cool.
I think it's pretty, pretty slickly done.
Yeah. In terms of in terms of like a
carriage along with it, You don't feel like you're kind of
stagnated anywhere. It flows kind of nicely in my
opinion. Everyone gets their cool little
bit. So, you know, Christmas, Scott
Thomas, like Marks the guy with her little perfume bottle.
You see, you see Hannah like adjusted or very focal lens type
thing. So she can see that, see the
marking on it like tune into the frequency of the the agent kind
of she just goes. Into predator vision, doesn't
she? Yeah.
That's really cool and then you get you.
Obviously we're following the guy.
We got the whole thing where the lift doesn't work as planned and
like Ethan Hunt in his in his big like fix of and drawl is
like talking shit about Jack. He's like within the air shot.
So it all seems to be going really, really well.
The guy gets an oculist because he's got a habit so we can take
off it kind of thing. So he gets an oculist and he's
about to leave the building and then suddenly it all goes to
shit. Like I say, like watching I get
I mean, I've seen this film like, I don't know, like 10
times. So it's pretty obvious that what
what we're seeing on the on the laptop like Jim Phelps has got
is that he's like he's been able to like open doors and stuff,
which has happened in the movie already.
So there's already a bit where Tom's like, I can't get this
door open, open this door so I can get underneath the lift and
he opens the door remotely. So if Jim can open the doors
remotely and Jack is there on site to be opening stuff, that
doesn't make sense immediately, does it?
It's a bit like, well, if Jim can do it, why is Jack even
there Anyway, So we see Jim like basically what he does is he
sets the lift going up with Jack on it and then he clearly just
logs himself out and he's like, and then you have like the
system failure thing pops up, but it's only because he's
logged out, right? So then he's like, I can't stop
at Jack. Jack, you got to cut the power.
Jack cut the power and he's growing up and he's growing up
and he's like got his own knife and he's cutting the wires.
And then, yeah, he's the has a horrible scene.
The horrible. It's pretty brilliant.
The films are PG as well. I was like, fuck yeah.
I mean I'm is like he kind of screams and it goes in his mouth
just for a split second that it's like that would be a 12A if
it came out today. Yeah.
What is it like two or three frames Max?
And it's just like, yeah, that's enough.
Yeah, that is. Enough.
That's like. In the screenplay, he he just
gets crushed by the roof. I guess you can't.
But I suppose when they got to the point where they were
filming that, it's like, well, how do you show that?
Like, where's the camera? Like, if that's just that, you
know, how how do you well, how's that make sense?
So that's probably why I had those things jutting down.
Yeah. So it's like, oh, listen, we can
see him get smooshed by before we hit the has to cut just doing
before that. Then the rest of them are pretty
brutal. Kristen Scott Thomas gets done
day. Yeah, really bad.
And then they all get killed, don't they?
Hannah gets gets gets killed in a car bomb.
Yeah. Jim appears to die and falls off
a bridge. And then finally, Claire also
appears to die in what looks like a car bomb.
Yeah. So Ethan freaking out on the run
from the Czech police in Prague gets onto a into a phone box.
And we have a little homage to three Days of the Condor.
Are you? Intact.
Yeah. Yeah, instead.
Of all you damage, then it's like, damn, that's cinema, baby.
Yeah, that's good. And it's the whole thing, you
get you guys to dial in. He has to give like an
authentication curve when he calls in.
And he obviously doesn't go like, I don't remember a Condor,
but he's like, what? Like BE11, something like that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, yeah, that whole
thing, they're dead. They're all dead.
They're dead. They're all dead.
And that's that's again, that's another like thread.
As the Condor, yeah, it's Condor pilled so.
Yeah, that's really cool. And obviously like Cruz is a big
fan of that movie because he worked with Sydney Pollack, so
he's obviously he's Condor pilled as well at this time.
It's really awesome. But he was interested to meet up
with Kitteridge, played by Henry Henry Cherney from Canada.
We obviously big fans of Jack Ren as we are, we obviously know
this guy as being the the terrible, horrible guy from
Clear and Present Danger, the guy who's behind operational
reciprocity. Robert Ritter is his name in
that. He's good at going scumbag mode.
Yeah, he really is. He really is.
And he's described in the screenplay as being a guy who
looks like he's still living with the Nixon administration.
So when you talk about this movie being like 70s pills as
well, like his, his costuming and his kind of general vibe.
Yeah. The costume especially, it's
like. The.
The trench coat that him and his Mara wear when they're on the
train in in the train sequence on the TJV, it's like that's
just skating close to like anachronistic for the 90s, but
it pulls. But the pull it off and the pull
off through Shia aura alone, through Shia swag alone.
So then we have like the iconic meeting with Kittredge in the
Aquarium restaurant, which is really, really cool.
Some of the. Some of the greatest lines of
the film that I'll probably get into when we get in the quotes
section. But in general that seems
incredible. It's amazing.
Just the camera work when Ethan hunts like kind of recognise and
you know, oh, there's, there's another IMF team here and, and
he's kind of pointing them out, you know, and like you seen the
cameras going between them. Oh, the, the drunk Russian and
all that and so good. So, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, the way. It's shot the angles to shoot
Kit Ridge at as well. Like it.
It's like the way it sets up Kit Ridge to be assumed to be the
absolute villain and existential threat, which he is, but he's
not the absolute, absolute villain, you know.
But the the way it sets him up to be absolutely devilish in
this film is excellent. Just the cinema work.
It's like love these. Movies for bringing so they
bring Kittridge back for for the latitude, which is great.
And I like that because first of all, I love like this movie
series. Nobody asked it to, but it has
like a trend. It's not a respect for his own
history. Like it didn't have it didn't
have to do that. It didn't have to go that hard
and bring all these characters back and stuff.
Like no one was no one. No one was keeping track, but
but they did it anyway. And I and I respect him and love
him for that. And it's great because Henry
Journey gets more work and I think he's great.
So and he deserves it because he's he's brilliant in this.
And I like what they do here with the, just as you describe
it, the Dutch. The Dutch angles looking up at
him slightly off kilter, like a certain Vanity Fair photo shoot
this week. Incredibly typical and
incredibly spot on. To yeah, to indicate some sort
of slight deviousness and just show that everything's got off
kilter. So you've got the same thing
shooting back at Ethan as well, because he's he's because he's
getting stressed out and he's a little bit off kilter and
everything's a little bit tensioned and heightened.
That just the language of the images, like shows you like the
relationship and that Kittridge is like becoming an antagonist.
You could watch this movie with the sound off and understand
that the guy he's talking to is is an antagonistic force just
through the storytelling images, which I think is really cool.
We get the payoff for the Chekhovs plastic explosive.
Yes, well, it's the. 1st, I suppose it's the demonstration
of the of the capability of the of of Chekhov's plastic
explosive. The hassle is on you don't get
on you throws at the the aquarium wall.
The aquarium wall explodes and about in the script it says 100
gallons of water. But I think like, I don't know,
like, forget, 100 cubes of water come flying out of the front of
this restaurant like a zillion fish.
And it's pretty, it's pretty mega.
I didn't realise this, but Sonya alerted me earlier in the group
chat to a real life fish tank that this happens to.
Holy crap. I don't think there was an IMF
agent involved, but yeah, a. Hotel in Berlin there used to be
a very large aquarium full of tropical exotic fish and
whatnot, with a whopping height of 25 metres and in Wow,
actually on the steam of December 22.
So three years and two days ago, exactly that randomly collapsed
and suddenly the entire hotel was full of fish.
Mega Darts. 1 1/2 thousand fish. Jesus 100.
Different in in excess of 100 species and a total volume of
980 cubic metres of water. See how?
That's. Yes.
So let me just imagine if you. Like the security guard on duty?
Actually, if you. Were the Latino on duty mayor?
Yeah, yeah. So they.
They got like a civil rescue involved with like cleaning it
up. It says here the majority of the
1500 fish were killed, unsurprisingly I suppose, and
two people were hospitalised with injuries.
Officials noted that the collapse could easily have taken
several lives had it taken place during the hotel's busier
operational hours. Detected by local seismographs,
the collapse sent the water out of the hotel lobby and into
nearby storm drains, but not before damaging several nearby
businesses, including a neighbouring Lynn Chocolate Shop
no and the basement of the adjacent DDR Museum, the letter
of which reopened 3 1/2 months later.
Much of you have been. Parked outside and my kids yeah
8 cars imagine you're. Just just getting out of your
car to check into the the hotel and you're his by an indoors
tsunami and all of Nemo's friends.
You just, you just like take it out by like some incredibly rare
fish that just bombard you just. Pulling up to the hotel, does
this place smell a bit fishy and then you're just hit by a wall
of water? I.
Love that the majority of them died, which means I'm going to
hate that, but I like the fact that some of them therefore must
have survived. I am.
Picturing someone resuscitating a goldfish.
Basically holding it under the, slapping it around.
I can imagine some like Intrepid weight.
I was just opening all like the taps and filling paint glasses,
the water. Just Chuck it fish and they go.
Come on. God damn it.
Yeah, I'm on Intrepid the block. That's saving lives, dude.
The the other, the other one, of course, is that like the fish
may have got the storm drains and then create like kind of
like feral fish population for the city, a feral exotic fish
population. Just these puffer fish, these
fugu and all that. Just like bobbing at the surface
occasionally more valuable than 90% of the people walking round
pound for pound. You know how rare they are.
But I like that. Could you imagine being one of
those fish? The stories.
To tell emits exactly. Yeah, you survived this
ginormous cadastry. Then you, like, find yourself in
like some normal tank in someone's house and you're like,
in the corner, like smoking a cigarette.
And like a new fish comes in and all the other fish are like,
don't talk to him. Don't talk to him, man.
He's got he'll, if he starts, he won't stop.
And it's like, oh, who are you? It's like, oh buddy, did I ever
tell you about the hotel? The Great Dome implosion of 22.
I was there, son. Big, big.
Drag like he's got. Like A5 metres of.
Water 1500 of my buddies dead. Could you imagine that many
fish? Have you ever seen that many
fish, Youngblood? He's and he's and he's got like
and he's got like a snake Pliskin style eye packed like
he's like, like he's like, you know, it is.
He's called Snake, Fishkin, or perhaps even you think you.
Know aquariums? You know nothing, son.
That's so good. Snake fishkin with no.
Suspicion of foul play and prior to formal investigation,
suspected causes included Ethan Hunt.
They they they've played it safe.
By the way, the hotel has reopened this February and they
have replaced the aquarium with a 24 metre vertical garden
consisting of about 2000 plants of two.
My garden has. The potential to do the funniest
thing. I.
I I was going to say it was like holder gets hit by 2000
different branches and one. Like 500 plant pots 4 sadly.
Most of the shrubs died, so essentially afterwards they said
bring me a shrubbery. So we have It's not the first,
but it's an early example of Tom Cruise running as well as he
escapes the restaurant and dashes across the courtyard,
being chased by a wave of water and a load of, I hope, a dead
fish. What happened though was in that
meeting Kittredge, the CIA Director of the IMF, so CIA
based IMF director. So IMF is subordinate to the CIA
in this movie, it would appear. Which means.
We're going to ask a big fucking question at the end of the show
and actually have a not ambivalent answer at this point
and. It does indeed.
Kittridge tells Hunt that they are suspecting a mole in the
IMF. And I think this is legit.
I think they are legitimately expecting, looking for a mole in
the IMF, but they all think that it's Hunt because they're all,
as far as they're concerned, everything's adding up.
There's a Hunt's family's farm is a receivership.
Yeah. This is the one and only time
we'll ever talk about Ethan Hunt's personal life outside of,
like, Rebecca Ferguson in all these movies.
Yeah. And.
And Michelle Monaghan. Sorry.
Yeah. And they think that Hunt is the
mole. He wants to sell the knock list
to get a lot of money so he can buy back his family's farm for
the Muslim like that. That's what they kind of
assumed. And then they tell them that the
knock list at this embassy in this mission was a fake, so it
would have been useless, but also that the person they're
trying to sell it to is this arms dealer Mac Max as part of
Job 314. So under that information, I'm
saying all this because it leads to what happens next.
So Ethan Hunt says right, I'm going to try and back trace who
the mole is by posing as the mole and talking to his Max
instead of going to meet so that I can find out from Max who the
molars. And then it leads us to me to
one of my favourite scenes in the movie, the extended sequence
where we get to watch Ethan Hunt use a laptop.
He is. All of us in this film, he is a
man who was very tired in front of a laptop.
It's extremely sleepy. He's a sleepy boy from that
laptop. He is actually that so top of
films predicting various things. This film generally predicted
the state. A lot of our lives in the year
2025 when we're just tie up in front of a computer, man, we're
just tired in front of a computer, just typing away
tired. He'd be beaten down.
Tell you what, I like this. About this movie is when he
receives an e-mail, the laptop makes the most horrendous sound
to alert him to the e-mail. It's like to say that he has an
e-mail, whilst laptops don't literally make that noise when
you receive an e-mail. To me, in my heart they are
doing that. When I see the other emails
coming in, it is very much like the laptop is going.
Is it is it, man? Hey, Mike.
Hey, Mike, here's a lot of shitstorm for you.
It's ever a good e-mail. Is it like very, very, you know,
I mean, it's I mean it's a special on a good work address,
several good e-mail. It's like a.
Hey, you found another? Random site quest for you to do?
Well, you are already overworked and this is actually not your
job. But would you like to?
Actually, we're not asking, you just just do it.
And why don't we ask you to do it?
We are accompanying it with that horrifying Microsoft Teams
notification sound for your pleasure.
Only for emails. Emails that start with YSA for
your situational awareness. I don't need any more
situationally aware. Everyone is too aware of the
situations right now. If I think we should all have
less. Awareness if anything I want.
I want emails for my situational ignorance.
We must we. Must increase the mystery,
decrease the awareness, more vibes OK.
So if a hunt using a laptop was on a hunt for an Ethan hunt or
use use net forums. And.
He's like job, Job what job what?
Who should I e-mail? And then he emails Max at job
314 and he goes into like he's looking for like a Bible forum.
He managed to find a book of job Bible forum to go on.
And then he attempts to DM someone called Max within that
forum. But even that's that's what I
took from that, Yeah. And man, I'm ancient man here.
I used to hang out on Usenet. I actually was like person use
that. Fuck you Sonya.
I used to hang out on a various usenets and stuff.
I think I was on the old Wesley Crusher dot die die die Usenet
which was pretty good. It was the one where everyone
just fucking hit Wesley Crusher. Shut up, Wesley.
And. And I remember being in one
Usenet group that keep get up. I was I remember being in one
Usenet group that I forgot which reasonable was, but it kept
getting raided by people from the altar Xena dot warrior dot
Princess using that group and I was like the zenith, the back of
the post and things. It was all in brilliant.
Stargate or something? Probably something.
Like that, it was all in good fun.
I actually like I was like Emma, but you don't remember he was
not just like, Yep, it's like OK scars.
It kind of looks like Reddit just from what I've seen before.
That short list of alphabetical Usenet groups and including
Amiga demos and and Amazon women admirers.
That. Was it, but it was like use that
crazy times. I heard you can actually access
them. We should do.
That we should do that. We should the Xeno warrior
Princess Usenet group and maybe they were clear and present
dudes found RAID on it could be very respectful because we've
got nothing against any other fandoms because we're all
chilled out guys who just like to post they're just.
They're just men. They're just innocent men.
Innocent. Man, just.
It's just just an end. It's normal.
Men. Just normal men, normal dudes.
It's normal dudes, just innocent dudes.
Just clear and present dudes. Okey dokey.
So Ethan Hunt. Spends a long night emailing
every possible account it could possibly be on Usenet and it's
works. He gets an e-mail back
suggesting a meet and he gets very detailed instructions about
what to do. Some funky little spy craft
bullshit happens and then he does it.
He approaches a man on a bench whilst holding a packet of
cigarettes and asks for a match and gets builded into a sedan
and is taken to meet the elusive Max who is veteran of stage and
screen vetting. Vanessa Redgrave giving extreme
sultry energy as as our arms dealer.
It's an incredibly horny performance from She Is Like it
is indeed. Hey, Ethan.
Really. Really enjoy that they kind of
bring her back via having Vanessa Kirby play like her,
like granddaughter or something and the later movies she's meant
to be related. I had no.
Idea. The only ones I've seen are the
first one, the second one, and I think some of ghost protocol at
Emma's grandma's house when we were all drinking quite heavily.
Oh, man, my clear and present. Dude, you need to watch Rogue
Nation. I mean, the rest of the world,
right? The Rogue Nation is fun.
It's the one that starts with the A400 thing.
Yeah, cool. Right.
So it meets Max. She he convinces Max that the
knock list he's got that she already has is a fake, and
that's sort of tracking device in it as she puts into a disc
Dr. I like that the floppy disc that she has the knock list on
is like still got like dry blood and stuff on it from being
inside the guy's pocket. He convinces Max that you can
get out of the real 1 is she gives him like a cash advance so
you can like buy the tools he needs.
And then we get like the best, coolest bit of the movie, which
is the the heist to get into Langley and get the real knock
list. I love this.
It's pretty much exactly as it appears in the screenplay.
But before that happens, Ethan meets up again with well, he's
met with Claire already in the Prague safe house and they have
to hire a couple of extra bods to make a team for a heist.
And they hire Sean Renault and Ving Rhames as Krieger and
Luther Stickle have respectively.
And Luther becomes like a series regular.
He's like at every movie after this, which is great.
And I love the meeting with Luther Phineas Freak is his name
is. There's a cool story about about
Ving Rhames here. So Ving Rhames, his character in
the original screenplay before got reworked into the shooting
scripts, was meant to get killed off.
And Ving Rhames asked the question of Tom Cruise.
She was like, why, Why does the black guy die?
And he's like, very good point. And he's like, well, you know,
like lots of people die in the movie, you know, this one
happens to be black. But like, you know, lots of
people die. He's like, yeah, but like, why
is the black guy always going to die in movies?
And he's like, good point. And then so from there on, like
Luther survived and he made it for like another 7 movies, which
was fantastic. Got myself, got myself a good
job for life. You know, he's been getting and
that Mission Impossible for the last 30 years of that.
So good for him. Incredible.
My bands getting out squeaky. Wheel gets the grease indeed.
Cool, right? So this becomes a thing and all
the Mission Impossible is going forward.
There's always like 1 cool big heist and they're always
explained the way they are here. Well, they're kind of odd.
This is this is the first one and it's the kind of the
prototype. So what they do here is they
talk about how difficult it's going to be by describing in
detail the rules of, of, of the security of the place they're
trying to infiltrate. So on this one, they're trying
to access a computer that's in a secure room.
Secure room can only be accessed by one guy who asked to get
through like a door. There's an airlock room, another
door and it's into the room itself.
And the room itself has got a whole bunch of security features
inside as well. So he has to get past like a
code room. It's like it was like a door
code. He has two key cards that have
to be used in tandem. He gets into another door.
He has to get through like an Irish scanner as well.
Once he's into the actual room itself, the room itself is when
it's not being accessed by him. So when it's like armed, there's
pressure plates on the on the deck, There's an alarm links to
like a like decibel microphone. So it goes over a certain amount
of decibels alarms. It has a heat sensitive alarm.
So if the body temperature of somebody is in the room, it will
trigger as well. So it must be cool when they go
in there cool and there's only one vent where the air con comes
in from above and there's like a laser grid over the top of that.
OK, so this room is like, it's impenetrable unless you happen
to be this one guy. Mr Donlow is his name.
He's basically. It's basically several figures
Smasher, isn't he? I mean, like even Eve.
I mean, yeah. I mean, you see, I don't even
have to say work with me. He actually know exactly where
I'm going. I mean, even like the voice
recognition at the start, it's like I'm watching.
It's like Cyril Figures, you know, like he's like, he's like
he is in. I mean, hindsight.
Cyril Figures is totally based on this guy yeah, I also like
how he's inexplicably like fucking dope sick or something
like keeps throwing up. Did I did I did I did I miss
something in which the poison that they still doing the yes,
that's right, just Claire Claire's disguise.
Claire is pretending to be a secretary of some kind.
And I fucking jumped out my seat at this because that's real T
Lane shorthand on a notepad. And I was like, fucking T Lane
shorthand mentioned. I, I, I swear to God, in most
episodes I mentioned a different job I've had, but I used to be a
journalist. I've got a green journalism from
Sunderland University. I used to work for the Sunday
Sun in Newcastle. It's not related to the London
Sun about bailings in the Chronicle and the Journal and
the Sunderland Echo as well. And so I was like, holy shit,
that's a real fucking tail line shorthand.
I was really excited. I couldn't fully comprehend it.
I was like, I think that's in at the start and and and and that's
maybe like a really long M later on.
But yeah, I was, I was buzzing to see it was real tailing
shorthand. That was class.
That was cool. Good insight.
What the rest of the movies do is they show the rules of the
heist that's going to happen. This is a bit like oceans as
well. They show the rules of that
that's going to happen. And then what they what the rest
of the movies do after this is they show like what successfully
beating it would look like as well.
You know, they would show not only how the original guy gets
into the room, it's also like what they're going to do to beat
it and assume it works, you know.
So like you have like the plan that was not going to survive
first contact with the enemy, but you see how the see how the
plan if everything worked would play out as well.
You don't get out on this one. That's fine because it's still
awesome. So, but like real life on this,
on this occasion, no plans about first contact the enemy and it
all starts to go a bit awry. It goes mostly OK.
So in order to get initial access into Langley, they call
in a fire. So they rock up, It's a fire
brigade. They hack into the fire alarms
in the building to make a sensor trip to allow them access into
the building as the fire fire department.
They go in there and obviously they're all dressed in there the
firefighting rig so no one can sneak up the faces and stuff.
And it's Luther who has to be wide into a terminal.
And you've got Ethan Hunt and Krieger are going to go into the
actual vault itself. And then you've got Claire is
gets takes the 500 off, is dressed as a secretary.
And then she just walks out and just blends in with the rest of
the workforce. She goes into a, like, breakout
room, which Mr Donlow is in as well, and he gets out his big
Washington Post and is just sitting there reading.
She says I'm comfortably close to him and then squirts a bit of
poison, like an emetic poison, at the end of her pen where she
drinks into his coffee. And that's what makes him start.
Yeah, yeah. I think I was just like, so
blown away by the fact that I saw a real last tail line short
on that. I was like, I can't even say.
Skip to the fact that she a drug involved just now, but yeah.
But to a seasoned hitman world assassination player that I am,
I saw the emetic poison straight away.
I was like, I know where he's going.
So he gets back to his desk immediately chucked into a bin,
takes a bin into the heads, starts washing out a little bit
of comedy value of him being sick and sick and sick and sick.
And that's what buys them time to to break into the vault.
So yeah, they have this funky little gadget that gets past the
the wire net thing, the laser net over the top of the the
vault. They go in from above a creeping
through the vents. One guy comes to check out where
they are. There's like there's two of you
in here. Where's the third guy?
And like Ethan just kicks him and knocks him out straight
away. It's like, look, look, Krieger's
about to kill him with a knife and he's like no body counts.
Because obviously, you know, Krieger wants to do a high chaos
run. Hunt wants to do a lower chaos
run. I like how Jean Reynolds playing
suspiciously violent Frenchman with a German name clearly used
to set it from some very sketchy French foreign legionnaire who
joined in the 90s and was very good with an MG40 to some
reason. It runs since a family don't
ask. And then we have the an iconic
scene of them lowering Heath Hunt down into the vault.
And then there's the he's obviously meant to get lowered
down. He's just some typi typi has to
get pulled back up again of the rush.
And then the MVP of the movie, a cute little rat comes along and
bothers John Renault and Ethan Hunt gets dropped.
And there's that whole iconic bit rate falls and just it's
just caught before we get to the top of the floor and he's like
wobbling around for ages. Partly when they were shooting
that home crews get hit in his head off the floor.
So to stop him doing that he started putting loads of coins
in the in his shoes to like change the the print of his
body. Can I just say something tells
me is a very short man in Hollywood?
He is. This is not the first time he's
put things in his shoes for the benefit of his film career.
Yeah. Or every occasion where he had
to stand next to his wife, Nicole Cuban.
But yeah, Awesome. Yeah.
So you got all that. What I love about this movie and
in the sequence in particular, is it does everything it does to
make it tense. So you get so you get the
example of like the floor pressure plate sensor going off
on a single drop of water from the guy's ice tea drops on it
during the briefing and you see that happening.
What goes red like it like the anti Billie Jean floor and then
the goes off really bad. And then for like maximum
cinematic like look, you have like an insane thing.
Bear with me here. Even Hunt is wearing spectacles
during this. He doesn't wear spectacles
practically for the rest of the movie, but for some reason these
spectacles during the sequence. OK, I don't know why.
Maybe there's a reason, not sure.
And then a bead of sweat comes from his head onto the outside
of the of the frame, Like the lens of the of the of the
glasses drips across the lens and then is about to drip off
the frame of the glasses. And it looks cinematic as hell.
But nobody sweats outside their glasses.
Yeah, you know what I mean. I think like the glasses thing
is because that's like where they've got their kind of like
cameras, right? Like the like the kind of
glasses comes and like track like it's probably.
Probably probably isn't it going you?
Know like yeah, yeah, but that's a massive sell of the MIC.
That's a massive over sell of the middle industrial complex at
that point. Haven't kind of cameras so
miniaturising when normal ass glasses with them and like you
know, it's it's just totally invisible.
They get the list from the computer Despite that that that
rat. Oh, I like the bit when they're
testing the microphone of the room by saying the word toast
over. Yeah.
I really like that toast. Toast, toast, toast.
I thought you're going kind of fancy some toast does it?
Does it? Does anyone have any insight as
to why? They're using the word toast, by
the way. I don't got any insight.
If I was going to guess, I would say this.
The sibilance of the words of the teeth, yeah.
Yeah, it starts like a plosive at the start and the end, the
toast and then the toast. Yeah.
So it's like a close, close, close and sibilance.
Yeah. Welcome to clear and present.
Dudes. When we deeply, deeply dissect
why they used the word toast in this film, there is a high
possibility that all of us in our childhood arranged toy cars
in a sequence. My God, what?
Are we doing with our lives, Gordon?
Now for something. Completely different.
Yeah, and that thing is close up magic.
So Tom Cruise gives the Nautilus to Krieger and then he goes back
to his hobby of typing into a laptop, trying to something be
seen. It's like he's forgotten which
e-mail address he's going into because he's he's concentrating
way too hard trying to remember the typing it all in and looking
at the Bible and stuff. Krieger's trying to get his
attention. He's like, you've done, I'm
sorry, Mr. Hunt, and he's just getting chinned off and chinned
off and chinned off. Eventually throws the Bible on
the floor and he's like, you're not going to take any meetings
without me because I've got this.
And then Tom Cruise does this incredible close up magic
sequence where he has another disc and he's like doing all
these little things, making it disappear and picking out
Claire's coves and whipping out of his sleeve and throwing it
around. And he convinces Krieger that
Krieger's has got the real list. He's like, do you really think
I'd give you the actual list? So Cricket froze it in the bin
and walks out and then even picked about the bin because it
was the real list. I love that.
That's so good. It's just.
Smart writing at Spycraft. It's fun.
It's it's, I think I may have said this in previous films that
we've talked about. It's just smart people doing
smart things in a smart script, and it's just really cool.
I like this. So this scene they cut straight
from Langley to, like, London during the safe house in London.
Well, I say this movie is goofy. This is the kind of thing.
I mean, there's no explanation about how they've got a safe
house in London. It's just assumed that they're
in a safe house, and I guess they've got one, even though
they're completely disavowed from the rest of the
organisation. So how could they use its
resources? Don't know.
Yeah. He's obviously never had to fill
in a budget control form and talk to the travel cell.
That's fine. I am doing that right now and I
want to die. So having all the all the front
of the feather, I like the scene because it gives a good
humanising moment for Luther and sets him up, I think for the
kind of implies sequel bait that you get at the end of the movie
as well that that Luther's going to be coming and joining the
team because he's like he gives because he gives an Oculus to
Luther and says I'm going to trust you with it.
You know what this means. He's like, I won't let it get
out. So he's like, this guy is like a
annoying hacker, but he's got a heart of gold and a conscience.
Ethan calls up Kittridge to kind of clue out that he's in
England. So he has him on the phone just
long enough that they can trace that he's in England, but not
nothing more. And then one of my favourite
scenes is happens. So Phelps just kind of appears
next to him at the phone box. And we have the the the Ethan
Hunt, Jim Phelps reunion. And.
I love this because Jim Phelps starts telling him his side of
the story about what happened during the botched mission in
Prague, and he's blaming on Kittridge and saying Kittridge
is like, set this whole thing up and Hunt is going, yeah, no, I
totally understand. Yeah, it must have been that.
But then we're seeing what Hunt is thinking.
And he's already said and he's already stressed it out that
it's all Phelps. And there's even one bit where
he's thinking class off that car bomb.
He's like, no, hang on. No, it was it was.
It was Phelps. You have like class.
You have like that bit where it looks like the disaster girl
meme where like the house is on fire and the.
Girl's looking easily at the camera.
Yeah. And she's like, yeah, you have
the same. Thing so she says suffer car
bomb. Then she turns the camera and
looks really evil. Yeah.
And then he's like, oh, it could have been.
Actually, no, it could have been Phelps, you see?
Phelps like, get out together. He cheques his watch and he's
like, ah, it's explosion time, time.
Bang Yeah. So I love that because, again,
it doesn't treat the audience like they're stupid.
Like we could have figured out that Phelps was behind at the
beginning. You see just enough of it to put
that together, and then now it doesn't try to string you along
that Phelps is like the good guy.
Like we know Phelps is a shit because we're seeing like Ethan
figure it out there and then and the the sort of the driving
force from there is actually like, how's how's Hunt going to
get out of this now? Because he's kind of playing
into it. He's going to start playing
along with Phelps and be part of Phelps plan.
So how's he going to outsmart Phelps and Kitteridge and get
out of this? It's kind of like what's what's
left? I don't think the movie like
100% nails it, but it gets pretty close, I think.
What are your? What are your thoughts?
The whole. Station scene is incredible to
me. I think I said out loud a few
times like this is so fucking cool.
Just again, the way it's shot. It's like the whole like
blocking in the scenes where people are even down mechanic,
the coloured reading stuff as like a film from a different
time. It's there's a big theme of
like, I don't know if I've you know, I've this is a theme that
probably is going to appear or not these films out here.
But the cold wars ended. There's your garden, the second
new garden. There's like leg the crossover
between them, like in like in the state how a few opening
beats of any to see it or like a thriller from like the 70s.
Then it goes in like it's like super kinetic late 90s mood.
But in this it's it's shot in a very sedate kind of way.
That is from another time. And you've got this conversation
between an old cold warrior and his young protege and it's just
like you're watching the terminus of two worlds at a
literal terminus at A at a station.
I think that's incredibly cool. It's, it's liminal stage really
in both their relationship in, in like the world's political
situation and in the future of espionage and what people are
going to do and how and stuff, you know.
It's a theme that we're going to see in a lot of these movies,
which is intelligence agencies suddenly no longer having the
influence they had on central government that they used to,
and then certain members of those agencies whipping up stuff
so that they can reclaim a bit of triangle.
Land. Grabbing again for their their
respective agencies and there's. There's that fantastic line for,
you know, the president of the United States is running the
country without your permission. How dare he?
And it's like, yeah, how dare he?
Yeah. Exactly.
That isn't it? It's and it reflects something
that that kind of happened in real life, which is Cold War
drew to a close and then there was a moment where everyone was
like, great, thank fuck. This is an opportunity for us
all now to reduce our defence spending so our countries have a
fucking fighting chance of making it through the
economically shitstorm of the 1980s after the after the
previous economic shitstorm of the 1970s.
You know, so I think everybody willed into existence a little
bit, didn't they? And then people in the military,
people in the intelligence community were all still very
much saying like, yeah, yeah, I get it.
The focus is shifting away from Russia.
I get it. But the threat hasn't really
gone away. It's just kind of developing and
changing. And now we're in a situation
where weirdly and almost nostalgically, we are back very
much on the front foot looking, looking towards.
Russia is our primary adversary. And China obviously is a big
concern for the United Kingdom. China is probably America's
primary adversary at the minute, and their relationship brochure
is deeply contested, contentious and deeply.
Sterning as well. Indeed, this movie happens in a
moment where. And we talked about this with
Enemy of the State and we talked about it with OP Centre as well.
Yeah. Where the adversary wasn't as
pleased to find. Yeah.
And what would happen a couple years after this was that
everything would become vaguely Middle Eastern, which would get
hammered to him after 911, and then it would become the Middle
East as the big bad. And then it become any
insurgency and then any terrorist organisation after a
while. And now we're back to a good old
peer conflict. Yeah.
So I think. Like before, but before
everything like swung like vehicle in Middle East and the
Electra properties, the focus was kind of on like, Oh well,
Eastern Eastern Europe. Now it's been like days.
So of your eyes, there's going to be this like powder keg and.
You have all these uniformed countries are still massively
under the influence of the old garden.
I remember all. These, like, breathless
newspaper articles talking about the proliferation of these like,
surmised Soviet briefcase nukes. The newspapers like the
Telegraph and stuff forgetting themselves and tried to be
lubricated about. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Crazy times.
Yeah, right. Indeed.
Well, we're actually kind of near the end of the movie now.
This movie bounces along by the way it is, it is swift and I
think, I think as they go on, I think they all get progressed a
little bit longer, don't they? There's a lot of blokes you
haven't seen Dead Reckoning and Final Reckon yet, but mate,
those films are at least twice as long as they need to be.
Yeah, each, I think. Mission Impossible Two could
have had 20 minutes cut out of it, yeah.
Or an hour in 20 minutes kind of it.
It could have been a. Metallica music video.
Basically, they could have what I'm.
Sorry I was just just trying to not cut in but the the whole
Liverpool Street scene sort of us giving me noir vibes.
Just importantly colour ish. I guess I was mostly irritated
by just the absolute downpour of rain.
Now it's just like like rainy London at that extent.
It's just such a detective novel.
Cliche. But every time I've been in
London, no matter the time of year, I've just absolutely been
scorched. There's been no rain whatsoever.
But yeah. It's a foggy London town or
rainy London town, and it's like.
Yeah, there's a scene towards the end where I had cops and
lands on a helipad opposite Tower Bridge where it's like,
still a nice day, but you're right.
Like that is the trip, isn't it? It's like we dug up Conan Doyle
and put him in front of the camera and and he did a thing
and, and now it's it's raining. Yeah, but all you.
Hit really good point about like that being like quite in war
scene and you're totally right. I think a lot of it as well
comes like obviously the camera fan environment.
Yeah, upstairs. Room as well, yeah.
And like, of course, with noir, like I mean, it's something like
the Lords, Rory Ganders bullshit, like the city is the
star of the of the film war, you know, and like the architecture
that you say and stuff. And that's very worse.
There's not a very war scene later on that will get there
when probably a few minutes because this film does that run
at quite appears later on in the train in in the kind of like and
like cargo part of the train where the lighting is just
incredibly noir. Yeah, big time.
I'll queue it up a little bit. Some pretend to be Phelps and
arranges to exchange the list, the actual knock list with Max
on board the the IT says TGV, but it's like you're a star,
isn't it? Yeah, Paris.
So. You know the the trains
mentioned. Transports it is really into.
Transportation. Guys, so the so the so the TJV,
the Tran Grande Vitesse at Centrica French like in a city
fast train. It's not the Eurostar, which is
a totally different trains. The TJV doesn't leave France
and. And yes, they're about to go for
the channel, Yeah. I mean I I'm maybe wrong.
I'm sure the TJV doesn't actually leave.
No, I think you're right. The.
Eurostars Europe. Express.
Rendezvous on the shops, Elise Seminole, German banned
Kraftwerk and Sanyo was just staring blankly at the camera.
Like I don't want to react to to these men mentioning my
countrymen. Are you old?
Enough to know who Kraftwerka. Would you like me to get my mum,
Sanya? Isn't your mum like a year older
than me? Shut up.
Just say. Yes, just say it.
It is a threat, surprisingly. Buttery.
Isn't Sanya Sanya me saying your moms a year older than me isn't
a threat? By the way I am happily married
and so is your mom but I'm just saying this is making me feel
old. If you say any going to recruit
your mom to talk about craft for I don't want to be.
On a podcast where I was sharing it with a son and his stepdad.
That's not that's not a friendship dynamic I want to be
part of. Yeah, this is.
This take police. Help.
They are arguing in the living room.
OK, you see. This right, this is where the
podcast shifts to a really bad sitcom, a sit pod, a sit pod com
sit pod. We have, we have we have just
willed the horror that is a sit pod into being.
By the way, that's an awful idea and hope no one ever does this.
The next day, Max and Ethan arranged to meet on board the
TJV on board on route to Paris, with Claire and Luther on board
to provide backup. Kitteridge is also on board,
having recently arrived in London and received tickets to
the TJV and a video watch from Hunts.
And in the train, Ethan delivers the supposed knocklist to Max
remotely. He gives her a call and she's
got it. Like, it's like, it's like being
on Oprah. It's like, oh, if you look under
your chair, everybody gets an knocklist.
You get an knocklist. And she's like, oh great.
Oh God, I hope this doesn't preclude an in person meeting
because she's like super horny for him.
Wonderful. And then her and a little dweeb
and nerd guy. A little it, really.
Wasn't a great time for like a dweebie sidekick, wasn't it?
Yeah, and he's. Like I can't seem to log on.
Yeah, I've not connected to the. Mode she's like struggling to
because she has to like upload it somewhere to verify I think
is the purpose of that and Lisa's there with some kind of
like like short range Jana which he like has on his like table
which is like just along from hers and he tries to like leave
it on the table yeah and get up and walk away but it's.
Inexplicably fucking flashing and shaped like a mobile phone
as well. So a train attendant just picks
it up and gives him. It's like, yeah.
That's it. You left this behind him, Sir.
It's. Like.
You could have. Built it into like any shape,
right? You could have built it in like
anything you know, have trained, probably smoked on trains back
then. It's France to probably still
do, you know, I don't, I don't. Understand why he he doesn't
like obviously you've got like a train has a little Symphony has
a little tray table. I think he had an actual table.
I'm not sure but like is there not like a little pouch You
could have like hit it in on the chair in front or something like
an aeroplanes. I mean I.
Mean, you literally just said show in the upholstery, couldn't
you? Just like you could have.
Yeah. Or like put it like in the
little move ahead baggage compartment.
Yeah. So it's also incredibly obvious.
Yeah. I mean like, it's not.
Like a metro train when you've got like the Titan we are metro
train when you've got like the the upholstery, then like some
metal so you can't push anything under it.
Like when when the pure checkies come on or.
Flash of. Yellow.
It's our. Read just just.
On the subject of trains, I've just checked on and technically
they are the same train. So Eurostar and the French
National Rail line used the same stock.
The same. Stock right they used.
The same engines and it used to be initially the same TGV models
running through the channel from that will go.
Yeah, because as you can see, it's in, it's in tasty delivery.
Yeah, but. Eurostar was founded together
with the opening of the Channel, so while technically
mechanically ATGV, you probably wouldn't have found one with a
French National Rail service TGV livery on it.
Yeah, does. This mean that we're all right,
that we're all correct. No, it means I'm wrong.
I'm happy to kick me out, Goodwin said.
Well, yes. And no, you are correct in that
the the TGV livery seems to be a SNCF thing applied only
nationally, but it is still the same train.
Yeah. You realise did.
Did you just? See, Noah, but there or a yes.
And because I think you did, I think it did this.
Is. The moment that the podcast
started arguing among because itself.
Yes, we will never. Never become an improv podcast,
by the way, I'm going to write you down the barrel of the
camera at this, just in case anyone thinks This Is Us trying
to foreshadow anything for some second fucking season when we
start like just we're all standing together on some poorly
lit stage and someone's like, oh, Barber shopping Byzantium.
Oh, so was it Barber shopping Byzantium?
OK, cool. And, and, and, and I'm a, I'm a
oh, professional shit farmer. Awesome.
Yes, and. Took the last can of wax Claire
observing. Kit Rich's presence on board the
train, it's her seat and to meet with Phelps in the luggage car,
confirming her part in the conspiracy is silent.
Phelps slowly peels away his mask, revealing himself as Ethan
the betrayal Claire was in on it.
And then Phelps appears. I right.
This is when I this is when you know, I was saying earlier on
like this movie is goofy as fuck.
This is this is what I mean. So where does Ethan get that of
a mask of Phelps from to be sat there as Phelps?
And how long was he sat in that car as Phelps?
Whilst Phelps is also concealed in the same car it it's.
It's wild to me they should have given.
Phelps a Ethan Hunt mask. Yeah.
Oh, this is what I said. I said, right.
I was watching it with Fisher earlier and I said Ethan had the
Phelps mask. Claire should have had an Ethan
mask, and then Phelps should have had a Claire mask.
They all should have like, like it was who?
I don't know. Who was it the?
Only explanation that makes sense and it barely makes sense
is that the mask is reversible and has an Ethan Hunt face on
the inside. So Ethan just walks walks around
with with his face on his face. And that's.
The only way it can be, you know.
You know what would have been even better?
Phelps with a Hunt mask. With a Phelps mask over it, he
could have revealed himself as Ethan Hunt.
Yes, to do a. Loyalty test on his wife, yes,
and then gone. Fuck you, it was me.
It was me. All in double blade.
Double bask bitch. He absolutely.
Seems that kind of guy who would like do do loyalty tests on his
suspiciously young wife, wouldn't he?
Like you'd like, you'd like kind of kind of like get like younger
guys, you know, like send out texts and stuff.
And then it's like, I see you continue to pass your lightly
tests. Well done.
They don't see that. I don't know what the show is.
It's like Gordon Ramsay had a show where he was like, put on
these really elaborate disguises and then go out in the world and
like one of them is where you. It's like 1 video clip where
it's got like horrible horrible mask that.
Giant mask. He's like a giant head.
He's like an airline pilot with a giant head.
Like they should do. They should have had like,
that's what the masks look like in the movie.
They should have been like that, ridiculous like.
But then like have. Like the felt spask just do it
was giant ridiculous ones like if you got if you got bloaty
head disease from theme hospital.
It just turns up look like something from fucking Roblox.
Something like that I guess. What we haven't seen in the
background is that Ethan has figured out a little part of
attack with Kittridge. So they've become like, secret
allies because then he puts on his glasses so you can see
Phelps is alive and well. Yeah.
And then he's, like, saying to Kittridge, like, it's not me,
just fucking guy. Yeah.
This guy who faked his own death.
Pretty suspicious. Yeah.
And that is that says to Ethan the whole thing about Al shot
Boss covered my neighbour's wife, which is foreshadowed a
little bit. So I talked about the deleted
bit from the screenplay. There is another scene where,
and it's in the safe house in London, Claire goes up to Ethan
and gives him like a Peck on the cheek.
And then Ethan kind of does this thing where he holds it with his
finger for a second and he kind of doesn't.
Then he kind of doesn't know what to think.
And then he kind of walks away for a second.
Then he goes and speaks to Luther, and there's a bit like
he doesn't really know how to feel about that.
Like, oh, what? Well, I love Claire, but I
don't. I shouldn't have Claire.
It's bad. Yeah.
Well, I mean, when when she, when she comes to the safe house
in Prague, like, obviously there's the scene when they're
kind of all yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Something boils my piss about that scene, actually.
When he draws his gun on her and obviously he thinks she's a
threat and then immediately turns his back on her to see if
there's any other threats in the room.
It's like, fucking come on, dude.
Come on man. What do you mean sexually
charged? Do you not randomly put your
hands into your Co workers faces while talking to them?
Yeah, I know, right? No, I don't know.
We have rules about that shoots Claire, which I thought was so
uncalled for, but I guess it just made sense for she's and
and presumably she dies because we don't see her again.
So that's pretty brutal. And that's just hear out the
movie now. And then we have the on top of
the train fight sequence. So this is interesting.
So we also, we talked about, you know, touchables and how that
had a train fight sequence cut from the movie because for
budget and stuff, this is this is I guess a train fight
sequence that we never got. It's pretty good.
It's a combination of miniature, but a green screen.
Yeah. I liked it better when it was a
fight on top of a train between two guys.
As ridiculous as that is, it's a it's a pretty well trodden
troop. People get on top of trains and
having fights. That's.
One of the. Bond films, right?
Yeah, it's in that new Indiana Jones movie as well.
Captain America, Captain America, it's also in it's in
another Mission Impossible movie as well, so.
And like in in the Bond film, another vehicle is involved.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is a bit right.
This is what it's going to come onto.
So I this might be controversial, but I am not a
big fan of Krieger flying the helicopter.
You mentioned that you can fly a helicopter earlier on.
I get it. That's that's not the thing that
annoys me. I'm just annoys about the
helicopter sequence in general. Like the whole like planned
exhale via helicopter. Yeah, that's a bit over the top
and. Then it going into the the
tunnel and I'm just thinking like I don't think the
helicopter would have been able to fly I.
Think it would have? I am having the the strong
suspicion that this is being. This is a small commercial
helicopter. I don't think it could go as
fast as the train, even without being attached to it.
I think it just snap its rotor blades the the second it starts
being pulled around. Yeah, I think.
Would simply not be able to I imagine.
Not a pilot, not an aeronautical engineer, just a guy who got
really upset when he was the kid that the colours on the spot.
The dogs beach ball with the wrong order at the end of the
book. But but I wonder if like.
Due to. Due like the essentially jet
wash from from from like the train, the kind of turbulence
that I've generated maybe as well what a helicopter be able
to even like sustain lift. And I was going to say.
I don't, I don't think I don't get to sustain lift because
obviously it's reliant on downwash, pushing up kind of
thing, the force created by you pushing it down.
And if that force is then being disappeared around in a circle
around the helicopter, then surely it just becomes a
turbulent fuck about and it immediately loses control.
Another thing that annoyed me about that is so they have the
fight, they kind of fight their way along the back of the train.
You get to the point where the very end of the train, the
helicopters here Phelps has jumped onto like the bonding
skid bits of the helicopter and Krieger like goes.
Oh, I know. It would be really fun if while
I'm flying this helicopter through the Channel Tunnel,
which incidentally means you're flying this helicopter in a
tunnel for miles and miles and miles now.
Yeah, whilst attached to the back of a train.
Insane. I know what I'll do.
I'll also decapitate Ethan Hunt with the rotor blades because
obviously these rotor blades getting the slightest bit
resistance is now exactly what I need.
Yeah. Like.
Like this isn't going to make us all die.
You are all. Going to die, Sir?
Yeah, yeah. So that was pretty fucking
goofy. Also, there's a bit of a cameo
here by David Schneider. Yeah, who at this point in time
I think was just in the Friday Night Armistice and other bits
of Armando Nichi, but who wasn't in.
He would have been in the original Island Partridge I
series as well by this point. I'm sure he.
Had some appearances in the day-to-day, the day-to-day jam,
which wasn't out at that point. Yeah.
And then I'm. Alan Partridge after this, which
he was in as Tony has the commissioning editor of the BBC
and. Of course, a couple a couple of
years later in me, more a couple years later in 28 days later as
he it's pure rage guy at the the lab.
Yeah, that. Guy gets his face eating.
Straight away, yeah buddy, yeah. So yeah, I thought it was good
for you as fuck. One of the things that you would
see in the 90s movie, but I don't you'd see now is like,
maybe you'd get in a Bond movie, but it wouldn't be as on the
nose as this. The whole bit where he stands up
and then faints again. It's like Jesus Christ, I've
got. Another issue.
So even the first model of Eurostar train was electrified.
So how do you fly a helicopter through that?
Where's this thing getting its power up from?
What's going on there? Yeah.
Do you mean like, are we are we talking like a hot rail or we're
talking like power, power supply in the ceiling and we're.
Talking overhead wiring Overhead wiring.
Shit, Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I.
Think, I think basically it is for the whole movie in the bin,
Yeah, yeah. So the train guys say no, it's
bullshit waste. Time bucked it.
Yeah, I had to. Have one job, man So much.
Potential could have been a good movie as well.
That's a real shame. Fuck bullshit.
All right, cool. Well, good night.
We've been with clear presentations.
That's your spike. Just take it easy.
Yeah, yeah. Of course.
That's not where it ends, yeah. So.
Yeah, man. So pretty much where it ends,
so, so inevitably, like helicopter crashes, spins and
spins and spins. You got a really comical little
bit where the Ethan Hunt's lying back on the remaining bit of the
train cab, which is stopping and the blades like slowly, slowly
rest on their final resting place, which is really sharp
knackered ruler blades putting directly these throat.
It was pretty cool. That was cool.
And then we get probably the least believable scene in the
movie, which is the bit at the very end wrapping it up, where
Tom Cruise appears to be at the end of a pint.
Yeah. That was I was really impressed
at how unbelievable that was. Fact.
No, he's no, that's just unbelievable that he could have,
you know, drunk in general. Even when you see him like drink
it like it's like, you know, that fluid is not touching his
fucking mouth. I know what I like about it is,
and I obviously it's impossible to confirm what beer it was.
It looks a bit like maybe Boddington's or something, which
is one of those beers that's like a mild in Britain but is
weirdly popular in America. Yeah.
Or like London Pride or something like that.
Yeah. I don't know if this follows.
Did the fullest supremacy exists in 1996?
Maybe. Yeah.
Follows, follows was, still was was a player at that point, I'm
sure. What I like about this is this
is culturally around the same moment as, but probably precedes
the moment of lager. Just like obliterating the beer
market, yeah. So it's nice seeing them
drinking like real, you know, Martin Clunes hasn't won that in
from that sort of men behaving badly with two pints of Colin in
his hand and just ruined the whole thing.
Just fucking biffed it. No, yeah, no, it's it is it is a
good scene and it's nice to see American characters drinking
that. You you got the warm British
Beer there, son. Sit my down, man.
Everybody be cool. It takes all sorts a lot.
Yeah, it's very cool. Yeah, we have that final bit, so
I didn't even mention it. So the helicopters exploded by
the final use of the gum. So Chekhov's cool, cool plastic
gum is used to do that. Axe is caught up with by
Kitteridge. Yeah, he's about to threaten.
And she's like, oh, my lawyers will have a field day with this
jurisdictional overreach and entrapment.
And she's like, hang on a minute, Let's let's try and keep
the lawyers out of this. It's like, I must have something
you want. And it's like corruption.
Ha ha. We have the final scene in the
pub where Luther is kind of like expunged of all his crimes.
He's a free man. What's he going to do with his
life? Obviously join the IMF.
So it's kind of like a, a prototype for like getting the
choice kind of scene that will happen in the later movies.
And then final scene is some perfect sequel bait where Tom
Cruise is on a a British Airways flight.
I wonder if they were good back in the 90s.
They aren't now, but I have. But yeah, agreed.
And then we got like a kind of a, a, a re reprise of the of the
Jim Phelps introduction sequence.
What? Attendance.
What the movie? Would you like to watch this?
And she's like, he's like, I don't know.
I was like perhaps the cinema of the Caribbean, Aruba perhaps.
So that kind of takes us to the end of the movie.
I only had a couple of things I want to point out before we
break for categories, which is music by Danny Elfman, mostly.
OK, the scores. To fucking wild it is.
It is mostly OK. Like it hits a few, it hits a
few, like kind of not so perfect bits.
But I think, I think I commented at the time, it's nice to see a
film with a fucking score with a real last score by a real last
composer. Melodic and yeah, so it isn't
just like a bunch of noises or a load of bad music, yeah.
Yeah, because that's what yeah, shit composers like me do.
No, but it became. Like a an easy thing for Action
Cinema to do is just like, well, we'll just bang a little drums
on it and nothing else. Well, yeah.
Yeah, like so just like for these scenes like like lively
woodwinds and strings interacting with them and stuff
and it's and it's like a camera and it's and it's real hour.
It doesn't doesn't need to have that in it, yet it does and.
I like it. It pays homage, I think, to Lola
Shifrin's original iconic theme tune.
Obviously the theme tune's reprised because it has to be.
But the rest of the school, I mean, kind of is in that similar
sort of vein. You know, you got the bongos and
the. Yeah.
Flutes and all. Kind of.
Stuff going crazy, yeah. I like that.
There's something called this where it kind of fell a bit flat
for me, which is there's a really weird triumphant bit when
Ethan makes the jump from the back of the train onto the
helicopter. Yeah, that.
That wasn't. And it was like that was weirdly
kind of like, it was like triumphant and very major and
kind of like, yeah, in your face and well.
I mean, the scores, Danny Elfman isn't it?
And I think, yeah. His.
Wheelhouse is doing things a bit kind of weird and a bit off kill
and so if you want him so if you want to get and Danny Elfman to
do something like hero gets like perfectly, you know, so Danny.
Elfman is obviously very famous for working with Tim Bird and
shit and it's probably his best work.
My personal opinion is when he was working on the Batman movies
Right. If I'm if I'm home to ensure
that is definitely him. I think it is, but Batman.
Batman returns the. Simpsons theme tune as well.
Yeah, yeah. So that was interesting editing
was the same editor who did the Untouchable, a lot of the same
cat, the crew that from from the Untouchables that Brent Palmer
brought with him. So it's Paul Hirsch who did the
editing. Same same as Untouchables.
Stephen Burum is is DP also same as untouchables.
Obviously the big difference is is the producers.
So obviously Cruz and and Paula Wagner did the did the
production. I did like the cool extra credit
for special makeup effects, which is pretty good by Rob
Botton special makeup effects. Obviously his his background is
in special effects before that, before he did this movie, his
kind of big career hits or makeup effects for Rubio cop and
total recall that explains. A lot.
And and the thing as well that really.
Explains a lot actually. Was like the general yeah these
bringing that yeah holy shit. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. So an incredible, incredible
crew on this movie as well. That's that's all kind of what I
talk about really. Just just kind of highlight some
some of the some of the awesome kind of pedigree of the crew.
Yeah, yeah. No, definitely.
Cool. Welcome back.
We're just going to go through the categories now as we always
do, starting with casting. Kristian Scott Thomas has a very
small role to start this movie, but she's obviously like a
tremendous actress, very well known, I think, but worth worth
highlighting anyway, around this sort of time.
She's just done. I think her big break might just
come from 4 Weddings and a funeral couple of years before
this. So that was pretty cool.
And then she'd go on to do The English Patient after this I
think the next year. So that's obviously a big moment
for her. Of course, now she's she's
currently in Slow Horses as second desk Diana Tavana at MI
5. So she's stuck with a spy game,
but cool. The main one I want to bring up
is he's easy to miss if you're not looking out for him.
Dale Dye is the guy who plays Kittridges like #2 like his sort
of guy he's always bitching off orders to.
Yeah. And Dale, Dale Die is like a
great character actor. I mentioned it earlier on, but
I'll go through his career properly.
So he is plays Frank Barnes in this movie, but he's, he's
known. He's in Platoon, he's in Spy
game. He's also in, it's going to
scale all the way back to the beginning.
So some context. He does an absolute tonne of
military consultancy work. So he's, he's got a special
thanks and loads of stuff. So.
And filled us from Mars. Technical advisor Platoon
Technical advisor, Casualties of war gone on the 4th of July.
So you can see that's maybe how like Tom Cruise met him and gone
the job. Jacob's ladder stockade
dogfight, JFK technical advisor again, last number Higgins,
technical advisor, Forrest Gump, Natural Born Killers absolute
turn and then his actual credits as an AXA also just as just as
many as lose. So again, he's an infantry
Colonel and born on the 4th of July.
He's in the fourth war. He's in again, he's JFK like I
mentioned, under siege, he's in as well.
He's also in bought a band of brothers.
He is Colonel Robert F Sync. He's in seven episodes of that.
So he also come I think he also comes out to visit them in
during the Battle of the Bulls sequence.
Do you remember that? Yeah.
He got he's done so much video game voice acting work.
Medal of Honour rattles Medal of Honour.
Allied Assault, The utterly batshit Medal of Honour Rising
Sun, which is just crazy as as Medal of Honour games go.
Holy crap. Battlefield 2 Modern Combat.
The one absolute the one absolute not good film.
And this appears to be snipe, our special OPS one of one of
well, it's a Steven Seagal film. It's not one of the limited 5 or
6 Steven Seagal films that are cool.
There's a guy in. Here called a German actor
called Andreas Wisniski. I want to say I don't
recognitions will be terrible. He's the long haired blonde guy
who's wearing the ginormous coat, so he's got the humongous
shoulders. Who's Max's bodyguards?
He's the guy who's sitting on the bench during that bit.
He's in Die Hard, he's in The Living Daylights as Necross.
He's in obviously This Mission Impossible, but he also returns
in Mission Possible, Ghost Protocol, as well as a different
character, The Fog's Contact. So he's Max's companion and then
he's the Fog's contact as well. He's in Scorpion King and then
Around All That. He's also in two episodes of The
Bill. Incredible.
That's fantastic. Great journey.
I mentioned before, I'm going to mention him again.
Obviously he's Robert Ritter in favour of Prison Danger.
He's also in the Pink Panther in 2006.
He obviously makes a return to the Mission Impossible
franchise. In the meantime, he's also done
one of those Netflix holiday movies.
He was in Schitt's Creek and he's in Scream 6.
He's also in This is Pretty cool.
You know, they made a bunch of Blade Runner, you know, remember
like you know their Animatrix. They did like a similar thing
for Blade Runner 2049 where they made a bunch of animated shorts
and he's in one of those as well.
Quotes. You've definitely got some
quotes, my friend. Absolute.
Bar An absolute bar is you want to shake hands with the devil.
That's fine with me. I just want to make sure you do
it in hell. That's what what a lane that's
up there with like there's, there's, there's there's no way
you can kill me that matters or something.
It's not me And but said you can't kill me in any way that
matters. It's bars, absolute bars.
It's it's a cold fucking lane. It's a film with some excellent
quotes in it. But that one's, that one's one
of the best of them. Definitely.
Yeah. And the one about the just just
just Jim Phelps's cold bit. Will you think about anything
that was inevitable? No more Cold War, no more
secrets to keep from yourself and set a new one but yourself?
Then you wake up 1 morning and find out the president is
running the country without your permission.
The son of a bitch, How dare he. Then you realise so far you're
an obsolete piece of hardware and not worth upgrading.
You got a lousy marriage and 62 grand a year.
Counterpoint though, is his marriage that lousy?
I mean, he's, he's really punching with his wife, you
know, He's, he's. Tremendously punching, yeah.
So I mean. He's yeah.
So marriage isn't that bad. I mean, he's, I mean, I mean,
he's concerned that she's having sex with Ethan.
I mean also. Adjusted for inflation as well,
that's 60 grand a year is probably significantly more now,
yeah. And and like, you could
literally just set yourself up doing any kind of like private
security consultant work, you know, which will be easier and
lower stakes than IMF stuff as well.
You know, you could kind of just say chill and like run, run like
security for like Pricewaterhouse Coopus or
something for the rest of your career and then and then retire
with your, you know, suspiciously young wife.
It's fine. You don't need to do this stupid
shit, man. Come on buddy, I love.
I I mentioned it earlier, I like.
I like when even hunts giving Jack shit during the during the
heist at the beginning, yes. When he's when he's got the he's
got the big Foghorn Leghorn voice on Go and go like Jack.
I believe we did have a Jack, an unreliable fellow as I recall,
constantly behind in his work. I was forced to tie him behind
one of my best aliens and drag him around my barn for a few
days because I love I. Was for a few days like and
quickly pivots from a bit of a lock to the destruction of a
human. Yeah, yeah, All right.
I mean it's. A driver for for a few days.
The body was The body was fed to the pigs.
Sorry, go on hassle. Lasagna so I'm good any any
anymore coats you never even Kittridge you've never seen me
very upset. I really like.
That my mom was a little confused how the DEA can mistake
her Uncle Donald for a couple of dope smugglers in the Florida
case. Because not only is it a quite
funny line that things about the live out, but also neatly ties
up how the kind of got the family out of this like, ah, you
see those this little mistake, you know, and it's like, and
it's like a neat little sentence that kind of chaos up plot
holes. And I like that.
I like that both as a quote, which is funny and well
delivered, and his writing which which clears plot holes up in a
really unobtrusive kind of fun way.
It's a weird bit of plot motivation for Ethan Hunt.
I don't know if we needed it. Yeah, I think him just being on
the run because he's assumed guilty and he's a clear his name
is probably enough We don't need to have because we don't see the
family apart from in one news report I.
Want dying slowly? Dying slowly in America, after
all, can be a very expensive proposition.
Yeah, get rich. Yeah, that's a, that's a good
one. Shit cold ass lanes man
Incredibly cold, poor, relevant. His writing.
Is this fire cool? Right, needle drops.
There's only one needle drop for me in this movie.
I don't know if you spot anymore, it's in the pub at the
very end. Dreams by you have.
Cranberries, yeah, yes. Awesome.
Quite. A few that a boxed reviews
reference that song and and that's to you, Evergreen.
Absolutely, absolutely fantastic.
Total tune. Absolutely Bob.
And that's not just because the Miller Little and me talking
trivia. OK, I've been peppering a little
bit of trivia throughout the movie, but there's there's some
good ones here from IM Duba. So not only is this the only
film in the franchise where Ethan Hunt doesn't fire a gun,
it is the only one not to have any shootouts or gunfights at
all. Right, that's a very.
Good point. I mean, yeah.
Yeah, all the all the combat is hand to hand and there's not
much of it, actually. Tom Cruise deferred his 20
million fee for a percentage of the box office takings instead
and ended up ended up earning 70 million.
So yeah, incredibly wise, indeed.
This is weird. And racially charged.
The producers, IE Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner, cast V Rhames as
Luther because they felt he was the opposite of what a hacker
normally looks like. I suppose if you were to say
what does a hacker normally look like if you're looking at
cinema, you'd have to say Matthew Lillard.
Yeah. Or what's his name from Element
Elementary. Yeah.
Jesus tip my tongue and shallow grave John Lee Miller.
Yeah, when did? Hackers come out 95 so so so I
guess I mean I am pretty sure that yeah, there were the there
were there were non white people in the team in hackers.
I love that also. If you're going to look at that
right, another move that came out 995 that had hackers in was
the net. Yeah, sorry.
Sandra Bullock, I suppose. I suppose Ving Rhames is the
opposite of Sandra Bullock. What does that even mean?
How do we even? How?
How do we even come to these, to these, to these like decisions?
The platonic opposite of her is Ving.
How I'm actually wearing this is weird.
I'm actually wearing AT shirt that celebrates the film
Practical Magic and Nicole Kidman.
It's incredible. I've got Charling down.
We yeah, we still fiction. Yeah, yeah, I've just hold up
some trivia of my own. I've just found a transcription
of the tailing shorthand from the cafeteria scene, it reads.
Remember to telephone Mr. Smith to clear all security files.
Combinations lock in slash 4 filing cabinet make lunch
arrangements with William Pugh for next Tuesday check through
dot dot dot make dot dot dot for next you see someone says yeah
well done from using real shorthand Pittman's instead of
some props department scribble this looked like T Lane to me
this is this really looked like T Lane to me while you're while
you're. Talking about that the our
company didn't touch on this and casting.
I didn't realise this, but Emilio Estevez isn't accredited
in this film. Yeah.
So that whole thing is 1 big uncredited cameo.
Yeah. And I don't have we talked about
this already before, but Tom Cruise does lots of cameos in
the Midwestern films. Yeah.
I'm sure you mentioned it at some point, maybe, maybe not on
the part, but maybe in like our our group chat possibly.
Yeah, so there's a sequence in Young Guns where Tom Cruise is
in the background in Young Guns during like a shootout scene and
stuff for like a while. This is quite cool.
According to Emilio Estevez, the scene of the IMF team gathered
around discussing the mission that opens the movie was added
at the suggestion of George Lucas.
So I said it was different from the screenplay out of the
suggestion of George Lucas, who said the movie needed a
spaghetti scene, a scene where they are all sitting around
discussing what's next. The cast was brought back during
reshoots to film the scene Right.
And I agree. With that, I think they do need
a little bit at the beginning where there's no tension on, so
you understand who the people are, the dynamics.
Use PALS before they're straight into work mode.
Yeah. Mix.
It makes you more vested when most of them get horribly
mercked in the next like 15 minutes too, so you know.
Exactly. Yeah, totally.
Jim Phelps is the only character from the original TV series in
here in this movie. Apparently there's quite a
blowback from fans of the TV show when they kind of took,
like, the beloved main character of the TV series and turn them
into like, a bad guy who gets who gets mercked at the time.
I cannot kind of understand that.
Quite a ballsy move by yeah, let's face it, Tom Cruise to
make that happen. Let's do.
The oversaw oversaw of them in industrial complex haven't there
in a while, but this one and this one really fits our we're
bringing it back from the dead guys.
They're bringing it back the most egregious oversaw of the
military industrial complex with this film that really does put a
large amount of Mustang on the MIC.
Oh yeah. Big time.
This is like, it's probably more it's a fantasy movie, isn't it?
It's even more egregious than like enemy of the state.
But any of this mistake was meant to make you believe it was
kind of vaguely realistic. But this is like, this is
ridiculous fidelity of the cameras, this tiny little pin
button, all cameras, they've got the interfaces and all the
tracking software they've got for the little tracking devices.
It's like it's. Wild because the chewing.
Gum. Yeah, the gum the.
The only gum my government gives me is to to do the opposite of
Constipation after a field week. The net exclusive fantasy of
that gum, technically. Probably counts as an explosive.
An interesting thing, but this film and it's a kind of
relationship with technology is that it both acknowledges the
fact that things like use Nets and Netscape Navigator because
you do see Netscape Navigate being used exist.
But also you've got it's a drum I've beaten earlier tonight.
But these these glasses that have miniaturised cameras in
them so small that they're completely unobtrusive and and
can't be seen at all in the slightest and have these picture
perfect images. I mean, you, you would struggle
to do that like today, like like like right now, like tiny little
fuck ass 1990s wireframe glasses, essentially incredibly
dad coded with just like there's just an invisible camera that
gets perfect quality shots. That's definitely one of the
biggest, biggest of our cells. Yeah, I'm not quite sure how the
polarised lenses of the sunglasses worked either, Swami.
With. The spray agent that showed up
on them, yeah, yeah. So it's like, what?
I can't tell. Yeah, go on.
I was going to say. Yes, it's some kind of like, is
it some sort of radiation I'll expect?
From it arrow something it's like because I'm I know it's
that kind of just predator vision, isn't it really?
But it's like but yeah, like, I mean the idea of like the kind
of perfume kind of chemical spray Mark and someone's really
cool, obviously, but they're like, you've got these like just
really normal ass kind of glasses that just show show this
like non visible height spectrum, I guess.
Or, or or consider stop trying to assess this film.
Rory, shut up, shut up. Go for Hollywood.
But it's like, yeah, the vaults. That they have for specifically
for the one terminal that that still stores the knock list on,
Yeah, that's over the top, yeah. It's obviously.
And it's great for like, the heist of the movie.
And I get it. And like, and you know, we have
to have a bit of context here. Pardon me like has to exist in
order for a lot of the film will work, but it's yeah, it's also a
big role oversell sort of a. Donkey dunk I have.
Two of these rooms and I use them to store my cheese.
The. I think the biggest 1, and I
hate to say it, but it's the masks, man, isn't it?
The masks are too good. Yeah, but that's like that's
that's a classic Mission Impossible thing.
We're going to see it through like nearly all the other
movies. Yeah.
So, yeah, no good good Calgary, though, because yeah, there's a
big, big oversell. But you know, it's like it's
like oversell of the military just so complex in Lord of the
Rings, isn't it? Like you might as well be like
grand who's got who's got the money for a grand right as.
Saruman's head ORC clearly noted we do not have the Smith output
to generate the roots. To generate.
Armour and handheld weaponry. So how are we going to
manufacture such a several multi million complex projects such as
grand think? I think the introduction of the
Grand Strike Group has overstretched the capacity of
the Royal Navy to the breaking point and I, I.
I think, I think I, I, I think Sauron's procurement of a grand
is a great what's the word look for metaphor for military
procurement, Like, right, OK, what do we need?
We need a battering ram. Yes, but but but.
I think it should be in the shape of a giant wolf that
breathes fire. It's clearly a.
Symptom of something larger. After the breaching of Helms
Deep, we have seen discussion after discussion whether the
battering ram has become obsolete with the introduction
of explosive powder. Yet even the Dark Lord himself
clearly thinks that the battering ram still has value.
Problem is right. Is that a lot of a lot of
Mordor's economy is based on the battering ram building business.
So and the and the and the problem is not bigger battering
Rams or smaller battering Rams, it's mass.
We need more battering Rams, OK? And that's the only way to we're
going to be able to stop all these refugees coming into
Mordor, OK? So, and that's maybe you, maybe
if we take this, this is just another authoritarian regime
desperately trying to create jobs.
I think that's what it is, yeah. Yeah.
There's obviously not enough jobs going for the native there.
Apparently is a vast need for for large amount of jobs that
are unskilled labour. And clearly, swinging a giant
battering ram is not an academic job.
You know what? And and do you know what's that
that swinging that that big growing power.
And it wasn't just the giant trolls guys.
It was some of the ordinary orcs because they had to prove that
the troll guys went like a DI here higher you.
Got involved for that one like the orc union got involved and
they're like listen, but think we'll see what you're doing
here. So we're going to, you know,
going to make sure that, you know, you can get, you're taking
quarters on of our guys as well, you know, but it's like, I mean,
yeah, you totally write like the idea.
It's like they've got like the whole like flame throwing aspect
of Bron means like, you know, the like the because of because,
because like I said, it's it's that's a battering round plus
shit burns, right. And it's like the because
they've got like just bring in as many contractors on it as the
can. I mean, the design process took
ages. They brought in loads different
like teams, various shamans, Wizards and freaks.
There's coming to odd things on it.
You know, there was like 6 Yeah, like when there was there was
there was I was out of the time. There was a whole or six months
when they were fighting over the size of various ridges and like
nodules and knobs on it and stuff.
So, you know, but like I said, it's all about just maintaining
the economy at this point. Do you want all these orcs and
and whatever unemployed? No, because at this point
they're going to start listening to that fucking Hobbit music,
right? They're going to start smoking
the Hobbit's pipe weed. It's going to warp the mains and
all of a sudden great Ban Orc orcs rise up against you and
you're hanging from a lamp post. Nobody wants to.
Nobody wants to fight anymore. But he was looking ahead.
He's like, like once, once the White City is gone, what am I
going to have my guys do? Yeah, but.
Once again, this is an ongoing problem.
Clearly the Dark Lord does not even want to pay for orcs,
because why else what do you have needs to involve men from
the east. Apparently he has to get the
perundrum involved because they're just cheaper unpaid
foreign labour. It's like than that it's.
It's pirates as well, actually. Honest to go to pirates, you
know, unscrupulous. Stealing.
Stealing mortar Orcs jobs. Shocking.
Shocking the state of a man take.
Mortal Grid Again, would this movie have been better with
Doctor Jack Ryan, Doctor Richard Kimble, or President James
Marshall? Well, I think the answer is
pretty obvious. It's Doctor Jack Ryan.
Who else is going to face off against Kittridge again?
Or in this case, Rissa? Yeah.
And actually Jack Ryan. Absolutely.
Fair one. Yeah, I can.
Hear Harrison Ford's going. You've never seen me very upset
as well. I can hear him.
He. Could he could easily be folded
in with as as someone who assists Ethan Hunt in like the
kind of end game of the film? Easily, easily him, him and him
and Ding Chavez and John Clark just fucking swaggering in and
just like, you know, I heard you were making.
A movie that had no guns in it, Yeah.
I'm going to fucking change that million chronically underused
Domingo Chavez and even more cromley underused John fucking
Clark. We are going to change that
dude. Two person body count.
Fuck that man. Streets are going to run red
with blood. I think that's, yeah, I think
that's it for those guys. Weird little guy played by Peter
Falk. Yes, he could have been.
I want. I want you to focus.
Ethan Hunt. Yes.
And and and doing all like the horny stuff as well.
And like Vanessa Redgraves, just like proper, like trying to Mack
on him and he's like. So.
Jim, I just have one more question.
Yes. Just just imagine him taking off
weird masks, yeah? Like he pulls off his Peter Falk
mask and is another Peter Falk in the knee.
Exactly. I.
Was going to say like the ultimate the ultimate like
twisters Peter Falk Texas Peter Falk mask off and it's just like
still Peter Falk and it's like you thought I was pretending to
be Colombo the whole time. No, I'm actually star of stage
and screen. Peter Falk making an but you
have never seen. Me upset What's?
It's Columbo, PFR grips off his mask, and it's the granddad from
The Princess Bride. Bit of fork underneath.
Incredible. Incredible scenes.
He could have. He could have played Phelps.
He could have played Kit Rich could have played a character's
buddy. Yeah.
Hi. God, Craig.
I love her. Krieg is the.
One Krieg is there's a supposed. To be a 0 body count mission
perhaps? He's.
With a nice and the and the right and the oh man, the comedy
of him like trying to like pull even back up again from the rope
and everything yeah, imagine. Him flying the helicopter, yeah,
with like a. Cigar like sticking out his
mouth and yeah, I can. I mean, I mean, I know that we
fucking idolise Colombo on this pod, but I can imagine him
flying the helicopter adeptly better than anybody else in that
film. He'd be.
He's given me like 18 vibes, yeah.
As like I'm, I'm like the last to hear this something, but I
was really amazed and really pumped to hear the like as a
dirty mark that he was in Colombo was his own court that
he provided. That's amazing.
I think that's. Meant that's like, that's the
platonic opposite of Steven Seagal bringing what appears to
be his own site on the Water's film.
Still not being able to shoot properly with it, you know.
Have you seen? The but once again, I'll see it.
Watch the Steven Seagal film. He clearly brings his own old
busted ass 1911 and he blinks when he shoots this.
I will ban the fucking drum about this for a long time.
We're never going to do a Steven Seagal film Was none of them
really fit the kind of vibe of the show.
Yeah, OK. Have you seen the Columbus
statue they've got in Budapest? No, but that's.
Best there's like a. There's like a translates to
like Folk St. So they've got like a big so
they've got like a bronze statue of Columbo, like scratching his
head and his dog in front of him like a little Beagle.
Jeffrey Wright. Could he be in this movie
somewhere? Undoubtedly, beware.
He fits with the vibe he fits with, fits with it's American
centre of obviously kind of story comedy plays that.
He plays a great, like, conflicted American, you know?
Yeah. The If they wanted to make
Kittridge less of a just a company man, they could have
made it give him a bit of a few more, a few more, a few more
dimensions. Which if you write, yeah.
He wouldn't have made sense, claim Krieger, that's for sure.
No, absolutely not. No, no, he's he's got to be like
yeah, conflicted guy or someone with a quiet dignity.
Have you watched the new nice that movie?
Oh really worth it. It's really good movie If he
writes in it for like probably 5 minutes tall.
He's got like a scene at the start of the movie and a scene
at the end of the movie. But he's fantastic.
Just absolutely just comes in bosses the scenes walks out
again. Brilliant.
I love the guy. All right, the question that
we've all been waiting to ask is this movie Prue or Auntie?
The Central Agency? I'm finished.
This isn't the end. Samuel Jackson.
Oh, you. Want to talk?
Commander U.S. Navy, the Lieutenant.
Commander Samuel Jackson, U.S. Navy work in this movie.
What do you think we could? We possibly replace cartridge
with him. I can see him telling telling a
hunt to go to hell. I'll tell you what you would
have to have if you were going to have Samuel Jackson do a heel
face turn in this movie. He would demand he had a scene
with Hunt at the end of the movie where they like, resolved
their differences and like, shook hands so that Samuel
Jackson got to walk away a hero at the end of the movie.
That's not that's not a slide against Samuel Jackson.
That's just the kind of role I think you'd want to have in the
movie. Yeah, well, it would make it a
very different film, but it wouldn't be a deal breaker.
It wouldn't be a film room now, I could definitely say at work,
and it'll be a different film. They could fit him in easier
into the sequels, I think. Yeah.
Well, as Kitteridge still or is it or like a different rule?
Different rule I think. Different rule, I think.
Yeah, yeah. That's a very good question.
That's a really. Fucking good one.
Christ, that's absolutely. Eyes.
Yeah, I didn't thought about that.
Yeah. Where else could he be?
Because at this time was this 1996?
So this is like post Pulp Fiction.
Yeah. So he's.
Yeah. So what?
We're near deep blue sea. OK, I could have been.
Hey, I'll tell you what he could have been Phelps.
He could have been. Phelps, that would have been a.
Slightly different vibe, but yeah.
I'll tell you what though, it would have been a bit awkward
when Tom Cruise pulled off the Phelps mask because I was like,
it was like, it was like, shit. It was like, was that, was that
blackface? Yeah, I probably did.
Probably. Did.
Yeah. No.
That's probably not right. No, we can't do that.
Yeah. What if he does?
Luther well and losing. Rhames well, exchange Marcellus
Wallace for whoever the Timur Jackson's name wasn't.
Perfection does my. Laptop look like a bitch.
Instead of Job 314, it's Ezekiel.
He could. I mean, he could play Kriga.
He could play Kriga. Yeah, that'd be cool.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm.
I hate motherfucking rat. I've had it with these
motherfucking rats in my in my ventilation shaft.
Motherfucker. What are you saying?
Toast, motherfucker. Toast.
The sound.
Check is just him going motherfucker, a different
motherfucker. Motherfucker, motherfucker this
this. The sound cheques just him doing
is like Rogal with cheese bit from Pulp Fiction.
Do you know what? They call a rat in Paris a chef.
A ratatouille? Yes, people have got there.
A chef. God Any.
Motherfucker can cook who, right?
OK, Will Samuel L Jackson have improved the 2008 Pixar film
Ratatouille? Right?
I hate to. Say this, but we could replace
my boy Peter O'Toole no relation with with I think anyway, who
who fucking knows, right? So.
He's the food critic, right? Yeah.
Yeah, So. Replace him with Samuel L
Jackson as Anton Ego, the food critic.
I would just kind of like to see that happen.
That would be awesome, yeah. Jesus Christ, you're telling.
Me a shrimp fried this rice this.
Is some motherfucking good ratatouille.
He comes in with this fucking purple lecture we do.
Not do not grant you access to the kitchen.
Worldwide. To me, be better with Doctor
Jack Ryan, Doctor Richard Kimble, our President, James
Marshall. Half.
Halfway to the film, President James Marshall declares war on
the French. Oh amazing, I haven't seen
Ryatui in too long. There was a joke I saw on
threads of like like linguine like turning up to work for late
for the fifth time in a row, screaming I'm sorry for lakes.
Like what was ratchet in my hair?
Fuck. Me, Jesus Christ.
What's this movie Mission Impossible?
Is it pro anti CIA? It's anti.
I think they were all in a way anti because they pitched the
IMF at odds with the CIA. And they're constantly, I don't
know how many more of these movies you've seen, Roy, but
like they are, there's always like congressional hearings
where they're having to defend themselves to like an oversight
committee for their funding and everything.
A bit like how they do at the end, like all the Bourne movies.
Yeah, and there's a really like there's a brilliant like running
gag of like of Alec Baldwin is always there like justifying
like. So I think one of them he starts
by saying like the IMF is needs to be cut away.
It's ridiculous. It's like in the in the age of
modern intelligence gathering in and singing etcetera, we don't
need human sources with like these ridiculous gadgets and
stuff to be doing crazy emissions.
And then at the end of the movie he's like, and that's why I
think the investor of the IMF is critical to this safety of this
nation, why we need it. And it's like you've just done
like a 180 from the yeah, it's brilliant.
Anyway, yeah, it's anti CIA which makes it seven to three
against I think 7:00 to 3:00. Against.
Cool, right? Ding Chavez Award for missed
opportunity of this movie. Well, there's one.
There is one now. I know the movie starts with the
whole very cool, very effective sequence of the team that we
think we're going to get to know all getting wiped out.
The latest season of It's Welcome to Derry, there's a very
similar thing. And it's very.
And it's very cool, very fun. But man, I love me some Kristen
Scott Thomas. And I think she should have been
in this movie a bit longer. Yeah.
Maybe she should have survived
and maybe Claire shouldn't have. Yeah.
Miss. Opportunity is clearly the size
of the aquarium, as discussed earlier.
Roughly 1497 fish short of something actually intriguing.
All I've seen on the floor was a handful of lobsters.
I think a missed opportunity for me is I've just had a quick
Google for the funny news nest and News Group names We could
have seen along obviously was so like the Amiga demos one and the
the Amazon women enthusiast stuff.
Look about alt dot Swedish dot chef dot book dot book dot book.
And of course, as the legendary, as I mentioned them off dot
Wesley dot Crusha dot die dot die dot die alt alt dot fan dot
Carl Dash Malden dot nose, some absolute total bangers out
there. And I'm just pulling up some
more alls dot alien dot vampire dot flunk, flunk, flunk.
That one actually appears in the film.
If if you have a look at the film, if you pause, that
actually does appear in US. That is that is referenced
there. See how they go this there.
There are there are so many that could have the could have been
of like a use net deep dive. You could have got in some use
net drama with people and people like Oh my God, that Ethan guy's
posting again. Let's take this threat to
emails, which is what they would do.
Someone was being irritating in a thread.
Amazing. Hey Royal, so final thing before
we wrap this bad boy up, have you got any notes from the
peanut gallery? It's taking my.
Glasses off so that the IMF can't see me look at the phone.
So there's some excellent reviews of this film on our
friend of the podcast. Not quite sponsored, but it
makes my life a lot easier finding funny things.
That is a letter boxed. Some great ones and lots of
great ones and ones don't make too much sense.
And some ones do make a fair amount of sense.
Four stars. No Sir.
Three stars. Fake news.
This was like not good in my opinion.
It's I made justice like action movies though brackets.
But it was entertaining and explodes in the high campy vibes
of that helicopter scene. There were single snippets of
this that were hilarious and ways I don't know were intended
to be like what Ethan is in disguise, but it's not a mask at
all. And then he'll whip his face off
like magic and it's him. And I like the part where the
government were descending on a hotel room or whatever it was to
capture Max and Ethan and there was a little old lady vacuuming
outside and they threatened her with a gun and she just kept
vacuuming. I will not be watching war
Mission Impossible movies unless I made to.
Also, I hope Tom Cruise dies for real.
Damn right. Yeah, 2 1/2 stars.
Sometimes I felt like I was watching a bunch of people speak
gibberish in tones that insinuated they must be talking
about important stuff like an hour and a half straight.
But also I had fun. 4 1/2 stars by Ophelia.
I pitched this by going Tom Cruise is so hot in this he
looks like a child. Which wasn't.
The greatest choice of words in my life.
But we did end up watching it and enjoying it, so I'm counting
it. Yes, yes.
Officer, this letter. You right there.
Absolutely. I can't believe I finally
watched this. Midterms have eaten me the fuck
alive. Jesus, it's been a week since I
watched a film. Last night I promised myself I'd
watch no less than 200 this year. 29 left.
I'm going to have to lock in this mud guys, pray for me. 3
1/2 stars a one that hits the hits.
A good point here. I love how 90s it is.
I'm not bombarded with background music.
The silence, slowness, dullness, and daily life sounds as opposed
to a music score in a music score.
Insert one right after the other.
They don't make movies like this anymore.
It's jarring watching this after the Ministry of Ungentlemanly
Warfare and someone just puts 4 1/2 stars.
Love Tom Cruise, Devastating. We have a very time.
Relevant 112th of December 2025. Three stars.
Bad news for any Portsmouth fans watching this.
Southampton did escape relegation.
Low key confused but they gagged me sometimes.
So and another one of five stars. 10 out of 10 banger and a
classic. Suspenseful, conniving and small
not saving the world in the best way.
Everything is a little off kilt are the acting is a bit more
unrestricted. People scream things not just
drop cliche lines. These weird close-ups from below
when Hunt and Kitteridge are reacting to things.
It just fucking works. Side note, I never noticed my
3,000,000 watches. There's a sequence where Ethan
spends the whole night sending little emails and seems more
spent from doing this than any other physical task, and I don't
know how it hasn't become a meme.
Cool on it me. Amazing stuff.
We're almost through these door. It does.
I can't stop thinking about Brian de Palma split diopter
shots. My wife left me, she took the
kids. I couldn't give up Brian de
Palma split diopter shots. Nothing makes me feel the way
they do, said Sydney with a 4 1/2 star review.
Quick Siska. 5 stars. The happiest movie ending in
history. It's 1996 and you're having a
pint outside with Ving Rhames as Dreams by the Cranberries plays
in the background. I cannot imagine anything better
on God's green earth than that. 3 1/2 stars.
Tom Cruise has so many good films.
It's a shame he's such a weirdo, says Haley.
And I think that's a lot of people's opinion on On Time.
You see the other time you say not Tom Clancy, but in fact Tom
Cruise, There you go, top cat. Cool, right that be.
The end of an episode of Clear and Present Dudes before we sign
off any final points that he would like to make about the
movie. I've been thinking we've we've
brought up soundtrack and general ambience.
And so I found a very quiet volume wise I've I've rewatched
it today on my laptop and I had to hook it up to to the stereo
to actually be able to follow the dialogue in places.
Yeah. And that's.
Really good call actually, especially.
In comparison to the later Mission Impossible and
especially the latest one, it's a very quiet film for action
thriller. Interesting.
Cool. Anything any any final comments
about the lasting impact of this mission?
Mission movie? You gonna watch the rest of
them? Yeah, it's been determined that
MRI are gonna watch the the rest of them.
I mean, like I said, I did say right, number 2 was a completely
different kettle of fish and but yeah, what?
We are going to watch the whole of my thing and report back to
you, but you are. In for a treat.
The next one, three is one of the best ones I think.
Sweet. Cut in.
Looking forward to a man looking forward to it, Philip.
Seymour Hoffman, Philip Seymour. Hoffman yes.
Yeah. Is is there any film he couldn't
make better by his presence there?
Is not cool, right? I guess a little parish notice
to our listeners. We're probably going to take a
little break over the festive period, so it's not going to be
bang on two weeks for the next episode like usual.
It might be 3 weeks. Yeah, maybe. 4 weeks and we have
to kind of have a discussion about what we're going to do for
that movie and we're going to come back in the what I will say
is that January, at some point in January, we're going to
celebrate Michael Mannuri. So there's bound to be a Michael
Mann movie in there. Which one it is?
You can say I don't, I don't think we're going to go with
Heat straight away, but hey, we might.
It's all it's all to play for. It could be black hits hits.
Really, Really. The brass ring, isn't it?
I mean, we've got to bring the A game.
We've got to take pre workout before we go for heat.
We've got to go on a vision quest and climb mountains and
shit. You know, it's like, yeah.
Exactly. And there are plenty of options
out there before we get to Heat. There's Miami Vice, there's
Black Hat Public Enemies. I'd like to be.
Manhunter. Manhunter yeah, big time.
The Keep question mark. Last of the Mohicans Don't know.
Technically isn't Spirit with this podcast, but it's a Michael
Mann movie. Ellies coming back into frame
now, by the way, guys. Okay then.
And he's like, right, okay, the cat obviously wants to pod over.
Okay, cool guys to our listeners, we have a peaceful
festive period and we'll catch up with you in the new year.
If you'd like to give us any suggestions for ongoing so for
contact us or give us any kind of feedback whatsoever, e-mail
us at clearimprisoneddudes@gmail.com.
You can find me on threads at Mike T 2049 and you can find the
podcast on Instagram at clear and present dudes, Rory.
Yeah, you can. Find me on Twitter.com at Rory
O'Toole, OK? Cool and and Sonya off the grid
still somewhere deep in the Black Forest.
If if. If you if you manage to find me
anywhere, I will be equally I'm impressed and concerned he's.
Escaping over the Austrian Swiss border this this Christmas with
the rest of the Vontra family. In which case, see you guys in
the year we have been clear. And.
Present, dude. Yeah.
Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.
Guys, have a great one. Peace out.
Stay on the flip side.