The Problematic Treatment of Women in Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One
Tom Cruise is 61. He doesn’t look 61 and he certainly does a lot more cardio than any sexagenarian alive, as evidenced by the fact that he’s always running as Ethan Hunt. If you’re a fan of Tom Cruise’s signature run, there’s a whole lot of it in Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning, the seventh film in a movie franchise that’s been around longer than most of its core audience has been alive. The fact that we have a seventh film owes everything to Brian de Palma’s 1996 masterpiece that ironically screwed over the TV show’s team leader Jim Phelps (Peter Graves on television and Jon Voight in the film) to make room for the franchise’s new hero, Ethan Hunt. As a longtime fan of Mission: Impossible, this film makes me feel like Jim Phelps.
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Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning feels a lot like the end of a relationship where you find out the man you’ve been dating has been a fuckboy all along and that he’s been gaslighting you the whole time. Christopher McQuarrie, whose long-standing relationship with Cruise goes as far back as 2008’s Valkyrie, is back in the director’s seat, the only person to helm multiple Mission: Impossible films, including next year’s Dead Reckoning Part Two. McQuarrie, who boasts an impressive screenwriting resume that includes The Usual Suspects, Edge of Tomorrow, and last year’s Top Gun: Maverick, pens this with Erik Jendresen and it’s … something.
Dead Reckoning introduces a villain named Gabriel (Esai Morales), whom we’re told through numerous flashbacks is a figure from Ethan’s past who essentially, according to him, “made me who I am.” The flashbacks are so cleverly done, so evocative of De Palma’s cinematography, that you’re fooled into thinking these must be scenes from past films. They’re not. The flashbacks echo the death of Kristin Scott Thomas’ Sarah from 1996, a device McQuarrie uses again — deviously — in a later scene, and it feels cheap. The whole thing is like a ruse the way old Mission: Impossible stories used to fool its targets, making you question your own senses and memory.
Not only does Dead Reckoning evoke De Palma, it also brings back Henry Czerny to reprise his role as IMF Director Eugene Kittridge, the first time he appears in the series since 1996. It’s insidiously clever and something of a nice rejoinder to Fallout’s introduction of Alanna Mitsopolis (Vanessa Kirby), aka the White Widow, who returns for this chapter as the daughter of Max (Vanessa Redgrave) from the same film.
What’s frustrating is that retconning Gabriel into some anti-Ethan Hunt simply wasn’t necessary. Morales exudes neither the menace nor gravitas of the late great Philip Seymour Hoffman, who played Owen Davian in Mission: Impossible III. Then again, who does? So maybe that was too much of an ask. But Gabriel is no Moriarty to Ethan’s Holmes, being merely a pawn to, of all things, a rogue AI simply dubbed as The Entity. It feels like a timely antagonist at a time when there’s an important conversation to be had about AI.
But to build up Gabriel as someone from Ethan’s past is a disservice to everyone involved mostly because it’s really just to set up the fridging of a character, and it’s the most infuriating part of Dead Reckoning. Fridging is the colloquial verb form of the term ‘women in refrigerators,’ which loosely refers to a literary trope where women are raped, killed, or otherwise just treated really badly in order to move a male character’s story arc. The flashbacks show Gabriel killing a woman from Ethan’s past and that event leads him to work for the IMF. This tracks since Ethan has always somehow thought with his dick, starting with having the hots for Phelps’ wife Claire from the first film. I mean, okay, Claire was played by the ephemeral Emmanuelle Béart, but come on, Ethan.
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Ethan Hunt still thinks with his dick, but his best character arc was actually when he married Julia Meade (Michelle Monaghan), an event that impacted four films in the franchise up until 2018’s Fallout. All of that goes out the window because Dead Reckoning brings on Hayley Atwell as the pickpocket Grace, who’s in way over her head when she gets involved in The Entity’s machinations. You might wonder, quite rightly, where rogue MI6 agent Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) figures in all this? Introduced in Rogue Nation and figuring prominently in Fallout, Ilsa always had some sort of rivalry and chemistry with Ethan. Unlike Julia, who simply didn’t fit in and was even endangered by the world of espionage, Ilsa was every bit Ethan’s equal and, at times, his superior. If Gabriel was Ethan’s Moriarty (he isn’t), Ilsa would be his Irene Adler. As poor a narrative as it is, Ethan Hunt’s character arcs are defined by the women closest to him, thus Julia Meade over four films and Ilsa Faust over three. Even Keri Russell, who plays his protege Lindsey Farris, is fridged five minutes into Mission: Impossible III to spur a retired Hunt back into active duty.
So when Dead Reckoning gaslights us into thinking Gabriel is this old nemesis who has a habit of killing off Ethan’s lady friends, it’s a lazy plot device because Gabriel is just lame. Granted, it was always going to be downhill after Owen Davian, but at least John Lane (Henry Cavill) has those reload arms. At a rave party, prompted by the Entity, Gabriel tells Ethan that one of the two people he cares for will die, pointing to Ilsa and Grace. It’s bizarre because in Fallout, Luther (Ving Rhames) tells Ilsa that she and Julia are the two most important women in Ethan’s life. We all got closure for Julia in Fallout — which incidentally makes it one of the best films in the franchise — but Ethan literally just met Grace. It’s insulting.
It’s even more insulting when you realize that the whole death situation is simply because of Gabriel, but as I’ve mentioned before, Gabriel is so incredibly lame. So when Gabriel overpowers the person they’re fated to kill with shades of 1996 Brian De Palma, you want to tear your hair out because there’s such a thing as guns and backup.
Look, Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning is terrific action. It’s the most expensive M:I film to date and it feels that way, so I guess you’ll get your money’s worth on the big screen. The desert scene with Ilsa and Ethan fighting off mercenaries is incredible, and Ilsa sniping bad guys off horses with an eyepatch is one of the coolest things ever. All the action is fantastic and deserves the box office bucks in a year filled with box office-worthy action entries from giant transforming robots to angry families in cars. Even the motorcycle off a cliff is impressive, except that it’s absolutely stupid and unnecessary, the action equivalent of killing a cockroach with a bazooka. If you’re into excessive action, then you’ll love Dead Reckoning.
There’s a tiny nod to the old television series with Pom Klementieff’s character, who’s named Paris, the same moniker used by Leonard Nimoy in the fourth and fifth seasons. Paris is an unhinged joy, and Klementieff gets to flex her martial prowess the way she never could with her less physical role of Mantis. Paris is Gabriel’s henchman, and because he’s the bad guy, he treats her as a disposable asset (guess how that turns out), but it’s really no different from how Dead Reckoning treats its women. Out with the old, in with the new, like expired pastry. As an aside, Dead Reckoning is also guilty of the most criminal misuse of Cary Elwes.
It’s 2023. It’s mind-boggling that Dead Reckoning regresses to using women as a plot device to advance Ethan’s character arc. There’s also an entire car chase sequence with Ethan and Grace handcuffed to one another that, while incredibly fun, is simply intended to warm us all to the idea of a new woman in Ethan’s life. Do we really need all this again? Does it really need to be pointed out to Cruise, McQuarrie, and Jendresen that the most impactful, gut-wrenching, meaningful deaths for audiences would actually be Luther’s or Benji’s (Simon Pegg)? Or Ethan Hunt himself, why not? No Time To Die had the balls to kill off James Bond, so maybe we’ll get some sort of sendoff in Dead Reckoning Part 2.
But no, we can and should always have more Ethan Hunt stories. Tom Cruise can keep running and making Mission: Impossible films until he’s 80. If we’re lucky, maybe the next installment will get back to storytelling where our emotional investment pays off, like Ghost Protocol or Fallout. But sometimes we’ll have clunkers like Dead Reckoning Part One, where the action is absolutely terrific, but the plot is mid and the bad guy is a bootleg Most Interesting Man in the World. Meanwhile, there’s always Mrs. Davis on Peacock for that secret agent versus evil AI action to tide us over until next year.
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One is now in cinemas
