Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)

Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Writers:  Christopher McQuarrie, Drew Pearce
Cast:       Tom Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg, Sean Harris

Ethan Hunt and his team take on their most 'Impossible' mission yet, eradicating the Syndicate- an International rogue organization as highly skilled as they are, committed to destroying the IMF along the way. It is the anti-thesis of IMF with its objective being to create instability in a revolutionary sense. Rebecca Ferguson plays the role of a British agency double agent inside the Syndicate, which makes the film all the more interesting since we have to always second guess her as well as Syndicate's motive.

Ghost Protocol was the film that got the Mission Impossible franchise back on track and it worked purely as an action film with three clearly defined set-piece sequences in it. We don't care much for the story and they only act as a vehicle to get Ethan Hunt and his team from one set-piece to another. It went through the mandatory MI franchise references like lit fuse opening credits, self-destructing messages, use of masks, Tom Cruise hanging , Tom Cruise running (That is not purely MI) etc without making it look tacked on. Rogue Nation is the film in which the story takes precedence in stead of action set-pieces and they manage to pull it off nicely. It is not to say that action scenes are not good but just that story involves you more in a a good way and the character played by Rebecca Ferguson helps a lot in that regard. It always helps when you have a double agent whose motives we are not sure of and while this is not a novel concept in spy films, the balance between story and action was just right. Also, the main villain was very interesting and it is a general rule in such action films that 'You are only as good as the Villain'.

Film did start off in an underwhelming fashion with a mediocre opening credits and the disappointment on finding out that 'the hanging out from a plane that is taking off' was there in the film without much story context to it. Anyway, it worked in a marketing sense since it was used as the teaser for the film. MI5 manages to take off only by the time that action set-piece in Vienna Opera venue starts off and symbolically enough, the target is the Austrian PM (WW1 reference). The Syndicate is very much involved with creating instability in the middle east and around the Muslim world, which is the current affairs reference for the film, and a lot of the troubles that is there now is the bi-product of fall of Ottoman Empire and how the region was dealt with after WW1. It is not what the Syndicate is doing in terms of their activities that is of interest to us but whether they are using Ethan Hunt to get to their original target. So it is a case of who is leading on who. There are only three major action set-pieces in the film (Vienna Opera, Morocco water stunt, Morocco Car/Bike Chase) and they gets over, I reckon, by around two-thirds of the film. From then on, it is largely story driven and that is a bold move from the director. It turned out to be a good decision since another major set-piece at the end would have been just tiring. Ridiculousness of the plot, in case you actually think about it, is not a problem since you are expected to leave your brains out for an MI film. It is the least MI film out of all the films in the franchise and that is indeed a welcome change. The whole idea of IMF, with its stupid name of Impossible Missions Force, is itself ridiculous and it is best when they don't go overboard with self-references and Rogue Nation manages to do just that. It works well as a standalone action flick.

Overall MI5 is a great watch and is in my opinion the best MI film along with Ghost Protocol. It is the humor and great chemistry between Cruise and Pegg that worked well in Ghost Protocol along with the great action sequences, and they added Rebecca Ferguson to the whole equation and made another solid action flick. It is not as big a feminist statement as Mad Max: Fury Road was, but it was good that they didn't go overboard with a romantic angle to it. MI6 is on the pipeline now with the shoot set to happen in 2016. I really do hope they go with a good director since that is essential for an MI film to be any good (1,4,5). As far as my MI films ranking go:

1) Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

1) Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

3) Mission Impossible (Hasn't aged very well)

4) MI:3

5) MI:2 ( Turned off after ten minutes)

PS: It was the first English film that I saw at cinemas in my hometown since Jurassic Park, around 20 years or so ago.

Rating: 4/5

                                                                             

The Usual Suspects (1995)

Director: Bryan Singer
Writer:    Christopher McQuarrie
Cast:       Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palminteri, Stephen Baldwin, Benicio Del Toro, Kevin Pollak, Pete Postlethwaite

A sole survivor tells the twisty events leading up to a horrific gun battle on a boat, which begin when five criminals meet at a seemingly random police lineup. 

Many films that got released after Reservoir Dogs tend to get tarred as Tarantinosque because of what people perceived as style influences. Sometimes these comparisons can be very lazy because it could mean any one or more of the following: Non-linearity, Violence, Profanity, Inane ramblings about things that got nothing to do with the plot. For me the thing that is the most prominent characteristic of a Tarantino film is the last one-random conversations between the characters. I guess Usual Suspects got tarred with the same brush because of the liberal use of the F word and its non-linearity. While Tarantino films are never about the plot or mystery, Singer-McQuarrie film is all about that and it is one of the best in this category. Tarantino described it as one of the worst among what are categorized as post-Tarantino films. It will depend on what your definition of post-Tarantino film would be but it is certainly one of the best films from the 90s.

1995 was the breakout year for Kevin Spacey with his turns in Se7en and The Usual Suspects. The actors signed for the film taking pay cuts and creators struggled to get it financed. It was made with a budget of $6 million and was a critical and commercial success. The marketing for the film featured posters with the line 'Who is Keyser Soze?'. Some people have criticized the twist to be disingenuous and as something similar to 'it was all a dream' kind and I don't agree with that. Even if he made some of  it up, there is certainly plenty of truth in what he said based on what the other survivor from the boat says-the 60% burnt Hungarian. The script is genius and the direction exceptional. Towards the end of the film it frames two people as Keyser Soze one after the other in no time based on montage and repeated dialogs. It is some feat from Bryan Singer because the film would have failed if the audience didn't really get what he was trying to say. I have seen it about 7 times I think and it is always interesting, which is proof for the quality of script and acting, despite it relying on mystery/twist. 

Christopher McQuarrie won the academy award for original screenplay and Kevin Spacey for best actor in a supporting role. It is a shame that Singer and McQuarrie didn't go on to make any other film that are even remotely as good as The Usual Suspects. Singer is now more of a studio director and McQuarrie had directed 'Jack Reacher' recently and is currently directing Mission Impossible 5. He also wrote screenplay for Tom Cruise starring 'Edge of Tomorrow' and 'Valkyrie' which was also directed by Bryan Singer. If one were to compare, I would say Christopher McQuarrie is making a better fist of it these days than Singer.

Rating: 5/5

Jack Reacher (2012)

Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Writers:  Christopher McQuarrie, Lee Child (Novel)
Cast:      Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Werner Herzog, Richard Jenkins

A trained military sniper kills five random people in a city, leaving plenty of evidence, and asks for Jack Reacher when he is made to confess.

Film is based on 'One Shot' of the Jack Reacher series by the British Author Jim Grant who writes under the pen name of Lee Child. In the novel the character Jack Reacher is a ghostly brooding character whose only physical description ever given is that he is very tall, which Tom Cruise is not. This annoyed the fans of the novel series as soon as casting of Tom Cruise got out and plenty of criticism the film received have been because of that. They might not have captured the sensibilities of the book fully but it is a good action thriller. Some of the actions by the protagonist is bit out of sync with the way he is portrayed on the screen but would have made sense if they didn't dilute the portrayal by going for a PG-13 rating ,which sadly  is a must for big budgeted studio films. Werner Herzog who plays the villain steals the show in the very few scenes he is in. 

The film made around 220 million on a budget of 60 million which is quite decent but very less compared to the blockbustery stuff that Tom Cruise usually turns up in. If they are gonna make a franchise out of it, I hope they make it even more darker and not fucking PG-13.

Rating: 3.5/5

The Way of the Gun (2000)

Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Writer:    Christopher McQuarrie
Cast:       Benicio Del Toro, Ryan Phillippe, James Caan, Juliette Lewis
Two criminal drifters without sympathy get more than they bargained for after kidnapping and holding for ransom the surrogate mother of a powerful and shady man.

The film's director, McQuarrie wrote the screenplay for Usual Suspects. You will end up disappointed if you watch this film with high expectations from Usual Suspects. Still its a goodish film with lots of violence and bloodshed. What stands out is that there is no silly back story given for the two criminals and the violence is not stylized in the sense that time is given to show the pain. The shootouts are done very professionally, maybe too professionally. The film overall is worth a watch even though the direction is not smooth with too many twists thrown in the story line.

Rating: 3/5