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Mission: Impossible
When Ethan Hunt, the leader of a crack espionage team whose perilous operation has gone awry with no explanation, discovers that a mole has penetrated the CIA, he's surprised to learn that he's the prime suspect. To clear his name, Hunt now must ferret out the real double agent and, in the process, even the score.
1996 · Directed by Brian De Palma · 111 min · Adventure · Action · Thriller · Screenplay in the scene database · 13 frames
Tagline
Expect the impossible.
Plot
After finishing a mission in Kyiv, IMF agent Jim Phelps and his latest team are sent to Prague to stop rogue agent Alexander Golitsyn from stealing the CIA's NOC (non-official cover) list, which reveals the identities of all their undercover agents in Europe. However, the list is stolen, and the team is killed one by one, along with Golitsyn, leaving Jim's pointman Ethan Hunt the only survivor.
During a debriefing with IMF director Eugene Kittridge in a restaurant, Ethan realizes that another IMF team was present during the mission and that the operation was a setup to lure out a mole within the IMF with the help of Golitsyn, who was posing as the rogue agent. The mole is believed to be working with an arms dealer named "Max" as part of "Job 314". Realizing that Kittridge suspects he is the mole, Ethan escapes, using a plastic explosive disguised as chewing gum.
After returning to the Prague safe house, Ethan realizes "Job 314" actually refers to Bible verse Job 3:14, with "Job" being the mole's code name. Jim's wife Claire, who faked her death during the mission, arrives and explains that before his death, Jim warned her that they were compromised, which enabled her escape. Ethan arranges a meeting with Max to warn her that her NOC list is fake and that it is equipped with a tracking device. Despite Max's initial skepticism, they escape a raid by Kittridge's team. Ethan convinces Max that he can obtain the actual NOC list for $10 million and Job's true identity.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Screenplay: David Koepp, Robert Towne
- Cinematography: Stephen H. Burum
- Edited by: Paul Hirsch
- Music: Danny Elfman
- Production design: Norman Reynolds
- Produced by: Tom Cruise, Paula Wagner
Cast
- Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt
- Jon Voight as Jim Phelps
- Emmanuelle Béart as Claire
- Henry Czerny as Kittridge
- Jean Reno as Krieger
- Ving Rhames as Luther
- Kristin Scott Thomas as Sarah Davies
- Vanessa Redgrave as Max
- Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė as Hannah
- Valentina Yakunina as Drunken Female IMF Agent
Production
- Country: United States of America
- Language: English, French, Czech
- Studios: Paramount Pictures, Cruise/Wagner Productions
- Budget: $80,000,000
- Box office: $457,696,391
- Themes: mask, mission, london, england, central intelligence agency (cia), computer, paris, france, undercover, espionage, secret mission, arms deal
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