From art house to action men
Smoke and Mission Impossible are absolutely the best Hollywood has to offer on both ends of the spectrum - in terms of art-house fare (Smoke), and action-packed star vehicles (Mission Impossible).
Director Brian De Palma and co-producer-star Tom Cruise have meddled a lot with the Robert Towne-scripted plot on Mission Impossible, and the result verges on being incomprehensible. There's a lot I still don't understand - and even more that's close to ridiculous - but it doesn't matter on this film, which is a high-octane, nuclear-fuelled special-effects extravaganza. It doesn't leave you any time to wonder why the protagonists are behaving so erratically.
Set in Prague, Kiev and London, Mission Impossible stars Cruise as Ethan Hunt, a member of an elite spy team headed by Jim Phelps (Jon Voight in the only role resurrected from the 1960s' TV show on which this is loosely based). The opening sequence sets Hunt and his team-mates (Emilio Estevez, Emmanuelle Beart, Kirstin Scott-Thomas) in Prague to stop a former Russian spy from stealing a computer disk containing the identities of the world's top undercover operatives.
But the mission is a set-up, and sole survivor Hunt is denounced as a traitor by his own agency. With the help of new partners Ving Rhames and Jean Reno, and the mysteriously reappearing Beart, he decides to take on the agency by stealing the disk himself - cue one of the movie's best scenes, where they enter the CIA headquarters in Langley. A cyber-criminal called Job (Vanessa Redgrave) who wants the decoded names could be the key.
After this, Mission Impossible gets slightly confused. Suffice to say that Cruise turns his performance on to Top Gun gear, complete with toothy grin and newly-bulging biceps. Redgrave magnificently manages to steal every scene that comes her way, and De Palma turns each set-piece into a brilliantly-paced special effects extravaganza. By the final denouement - which takes place on a TGV train to Paris and involves a hi-tech helicopter - reality has been left in Prague, but who's complaining? Mission Impossible is a perfect no-brainer, a popcorn movie par excellence. Cruise fans will note that the superstar appears to have transgressed the point where he even has to kiss the girl - he could well be the only asexual matinee idol.
Smoke, meanwhile, as directed by Hong Kong's own Wayne Wang from the Paul Auster novel, is just a gorgeous viewing experience. With exquisite performances (from William Hurt and Harvey Keitel in particular), a marvellous soundtrack (heavily influenced by the Jerry Garcia band), and some poignant observations, Smoke is one of those movies you wish would never end.
Set amongst the characters who frequent a smoke shop in Brooklyn run by Auggie Wren (Harvey Keitel), Smoke bands together several subtle vignettes - from the experiences of the bereaved novelist played by Hurt, to Keitel's own domestic melodrama (with ex-flame Stockard Channing and druggie daughter Ashley Judd), to a conniving black boy in search of his father (Forest Whitaker). They all start and end up in Auggie's smoke shop.
There are several magical moments in Smoke, but when Hurt and Keitel share the pleasure of a cigarette in the closing sequence, to the strains of Garcia's band, it's accompanied by a sharp pang of regret that this marvellous film is ending.
Wang is one of the the most gifted and mature storytellers working in Hollywood today.
Mission Impossible (Panasia circuit); Smoke (Cine-Art)
