Hector and the Search for Happiness

Director: Brian DePalma

Cast: Tom Cruise, Jon Voight, Emmanuelle Beart, Henry Czerny, Jean Reno, Ving Rhames, Kristin Scott Thomas, Vanessa Redgrave

Screenplay: David Koepp, Robert Towne

110 mins. Rated PG-13 for some intense action violence.

Adaptations of popular television series are really tough. How do you condense the best parts of a multi-season run into 90 minutes? How can it be done? Some successful versions, like 21 Jump Street, poke fun at the silliness of the source material. Others, like Mission: Impossible, drastically change the series direction while holding up its most important rules.

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise, Top Gun, Edge of Tomorrow) has run into a bit of trouble on his newest mission to recover the IMF (Impossible Missions Force) non-official cover, or NOC, list. His entire team has been attacked and Ethan has become framed for the attack. Without long-time team leader Jim Phelps (Jon Voight, TV’s Ray Donovan, Heat) to help protect him, Ethan is now the target of a manhunt set in motion by Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny, TV’s Revenge, The A-Team), and now, with the help of two disavowed IMF agents, Franz Krieger (Jean Reno, Leon: The Professional, Hector and the Search for Happiness) and Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames, Pulp Fiction, Jamesy Boy), Ethan is out to discover who wants him dead and who has the NOC list.

Mission: Impossible has a somewhat confusing plotline. There is a lot happening all at once, mostly due to the fact that the film went into production without a finished screenplay. Screenwriters David Koepp and Robert Towne were disappointed in the finished product. The original cast of the TV show (of which the film is a sequel) chose not to reprise their roles because they felt that the film was a bastardizing of their beloved property.

I personally found the finished product to be one of the more enjoyable espionage films of the 1990s. Tom Cruise solidified himself as a bona fide action star in a role where he doesn’t fire a gun the entire film. Jon Voight is a great man to take over the role of Jim Phelps from original television actor Peter Graves, who disliked Phelps’ portrayal in the story. I also really liked Reno, Rhames (who would become a staple of the series much like Cruise himself) and Czerny.

Mission: Impossible contains some truly iconic moments both for the franchise and the action genre in general. The only part of the film that truly irks me is the opening credits (to be fair, I love the opening credits, but the decision to montage important plot points throughout the now-iconic score and opening bothers the hell out of me, but it continues throughout the entire franchise). This is one Tom Cruise property that I can’t wait to see every time there is new installment (except for the second film, but we’ll get to that later).

4/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

Director: David Fincher

Cast: Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry, Carrie Coon

Screenplay: Gillian Flynn

149 mins. Rated R for a scene of bloody violence, some strong sexual content/nudity, and language.

Academy Award Nominee: Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Rosamund Pike) [Awards Not Yet Announced]

David Fincher (Fight Club, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) can really do it all. I’ve seen footage of him on set directing, and he knows his stuff. He understands the complex process of lighting, cinematography, editing, music, everything. Perhaps that is why his films are so totally tonally jarring.

Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck, Argo, Runner Runner) is about to celebrate his fifth wedding anniversary with wife Amy (Rosamund Pike, Pride & Prejudice, Hector and the Search for Happiness). When he arrives home after checking in with sister Margo (Carrie Coon, TV’s The Leftovers), he discovers that Amy is gone. The living room shows signs of a struggle, and the door is wide open. Now, the police are investigating and Nick is dodging questions and lying. He can’t explain his whereabouts when Amy went missing, and the media firestorm is heating up. So the question is: Did Nick Dunne kill his wife?

The first thing I fell in love with in Gone Girl is the opening titles. I always look forward to a great opening from Fincher. The man knows how to set a scene, but in Gone Girl, we just got little flits of names, roughly half the time needed to read them. I missed a few even. They pop up and then boom!, they are gone, like the girl in question.

Ben Affleck is absolutely perfect as suspected husband Nick. He plays the role so well, that it becomes entirely believable that he may have kidnapped and killed his wife. But did he? He plays both sides so well that it is impossible to know for certain until the answers come forth. When I saw Ben Affleck channeling the likes of Scott Peterson and playing to the faults and wins of Nick, I got chills.

Rosamund Pike isn’t so much a leading lady as she is a presence on the screen. Totally deserving of her Oscar win as the film presents Amy’s side of the story through journal entries chronicling the ups and downs of their love story. She commands her scenes.

Neil Patrick Harris (TV’s How I Met Your Mother, A Million Ways to Die in the West) is a creepy presence as Amy’s ex-love Desi, who has an alibi but to Nick seems to be hiding something nonetheless.

Then there is Tyler Perry (I Can Do Bad All By Myself, The Single Moms Club), who needs to do more acting in movies he isn’t directing. Seriously, I enjoyed the small screen-time he had in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek, but he just nails it in the role of Tanner Bolt, a big-shot lawyer who takes on impossible cases like Nick’s.

I should also point out the great additions of relative newcomers Carrie Coon and Emily Ratajkowski. Coon is convincing as Nick’s sister Margo despite the age difference, and Ratajkowski plays to her strengths as the college girl who wants more from teacher Nick than just lessons.

The novel’s writer Gillian Flynn is responsible for adapting the screenplay, and she does well. Without losing the structure, she adapts the novel quite well, excelling at picking the right moments to adapt without just throwing the novel at the screen. The screenplay took some slashing before filming began, and perhaps it could have been tipped a few more times, but the pacing is still pretty solid.

The score, from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, their third collaboration with Fincher, works perfectly here. I enjoyed their work in The Social Network but felt that The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo missed some cues that could’ve been more exemplified. It is equal parts tonally exhilarating and utterly unnerving.

Gone Girl is a near-perfect adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s novel that stays true to it from every angle. Fincher is the perfect man to bring it, and Affleck’s manhood, to the screen. See this movie. You may love it, you may hate it, but one thing you can’t argue about, you can’t forget it.

4.5/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

Tag: Hector and the Search for Happiness

Mission: Impossible (1996)