It used to be pretty rare for “Mission: Impossible” films to carry over characters from one film to the next — only Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) have been in all seven thus far.
Moreover, “Ghost Protocol,” “Rogue Nation, and “Fallout” mostly used the third film, “Mission: Impossible III” as their foundation, particularly with the important roles of resident tech geek Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and Ethan’s wife Julie (Michelle Monaghan). This left the first two “Mission: Impossible” films feeling more and more like standalone efforts. This made it all the more surprising when “Fallout” also nodded to the 1996 original: Alanna Mitsopolis/White Widow (Vanessa Kirby) is the daughter of Max (Vanessa Redgrave) and inherited her mother’s arms dealing business.
The seventh film, “Dead Reckoning Part One,” takes the nods one step further: Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny) returns after a five-movie absence, the longest hiatus of the series so far. If you don’t remember, Kittridge was the IMF director who hunted the wrongly-accused Ethan in the first film. This story laid the template for many of the sequels: Ethan is framed for treason and/or has to go on the run. Oftentimes, he’s hunted by a slimy administrator who turns out to not be a bad guy after all — Theodore Brassell (Laurence Fishburne) in “M:I III” and Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin) in “Rogue Nation.”
According to Czerny, Kittridge has spent the last 25 years walking through revolving doors at every intelligence agency; the man is a career bureaucrat. By “Dead Reckoning,” he’s now CIA director — but despite his new role, he remains Ethan’s nominal superior and a true thorn in his side. What is Kittridge’s role in “Dead Reckoning Part One” and why was he a character worth bringing back in the first place?
Who is Eugene Kittridge?
In “Mission Impossible,” we first meet Kittridge at the end of the first act. The operation that Ethan’s team has been working on went up in smoke, he’s the only survivor, and he rendezvouses with Kittridge at the Akvarium restaurant in Prague to debrief him. The problem is, Kittridge is now convinced that Ethan’s a traitor because he survived the job that was, in reality, a staged mole hunt.
Director Brian De Palma’s Hitchcock fetishism shows up time and time again in his films; the restaurant scene is where it most rears its head in “Mission: Impossible,” with tension slowly escalating as Ethan realizes he’s been framed as a mole. Hitch famously said to show a bomb under a table to racket up the suspense — De Palma uses that principle but with exploding gum.
“You seem hellbent on blaming yourself, Ethan,” Kittridge says, turning the scene on its head. “Who else is left?” the unknowing Ethan replies. “Yeah,” Kittridge averts his gaze, trying to suppress his reaction so Ethan doesn’t get wise too fast. Once Ethan clues in, De Palma switches up the framing, going from standard back-and-forth medium close-ups to low Dutch angles. Those angles make Kittridge’s smarmy grins look downright menacing.
The first ‘Mission: Impossible’ red herring
Beyond that, Kittridge has some of the best lines in the movie, particularly the denouement of his accusation:
“All right, Hunt. Enough is enough. You have bribed, cajoled, and killed, and you have done it using loyalties on the inside. You want to shake hands with the devil, that’s fine with me. I just want to make sure that you do it in hell!”
Pay attention to how he delivers these lines: Kittridge is practically seething because this isn’t a performance for him. He’s righteously angry at Ethan’s (believed) crimes and no one does indignation quite like Henry Czerny. That’s part of the strategy of “Mission: Impossible” films from the beginning — since the characters are thin, fill in the gaps with memorable character actors. Just look at Ethan’s doomed team, which includes Kristin Scott Thomas and Emilio Estevez.
Kittridge continues pursuing Ethan throughout the film, even as the man slips right under his nose again and again. The film rightfully doesn’t linger on a red herring that Kittridge might be the true mole — it’d be too clean and, in paranoid spy thrillers, things rarely are. Instead, Ethan lures Kittridge onto the train where the climax goes down. While Ethan dispatches the real traitor, Jim Phelps (Jon Voight), Kittridge arrests Max — he sternly suggests they “bypass the courts” when Max pulls the lawyer card.
Until 2023, that was the last we’d seen of Eugene Kittridge.
Kittridge’s return
Kittridge first appears in “Dead Reckoning” as the voice on this movie’s “your mission, should you choose to accept it” message — he fills in the audience on the movie’s driving conflict and Ethan’s past. He shows up in person while meeting with other intelligence community figureheads before a masked Ethan shows up and knocks out everyone but Kittridge.
The film lays out the conflict between the two men: Kittridge wants to control the so-called “Entity,” believing the U.S. needs the edge of artificial intelligence for the coming climate wars. Ethan, though, wants to destroy the Entity, believing it’s too dangerous a weapon for any one man or state. Here’s where Kittridge delivers the dialogue previously used for narration in the final “Dead Reckoning” trailer:
“Our lives are the sum of our choices and we cannot escape the past. Ethan, this mission of yours is going to cost you … dearly.”
Czerny’s fay, Patrician condescension hasn’t faded at all in the last 25 years. But despite this dressing down, Ethan still decides to go rogue (is it Tuesday?) to destroy the Entity. Ethan then exits the building with a Kittridge mask, the man himself asking why he didn’t see that coming before he’s knocked unconscious.
Unexpected allies
Kittridge is largely absent in the second act but he returns in the third. Alanna has a buyer for the movie’s MacGuffin (a key that can control the Entity). It turns out to be Kittridge. This winds up calling back to the first film — Kittridge gave Max leniency in exchange for her becoming his intelligence asset. Alanna inherited this relationship after her mother passed. The deal is disrupted by Grace (Hayley Atwell) posing as Alanna.
Like in the 1996 film, Kittridge is on a train while Ethan fights around him. Once that’s over and Ethan flees, Kittridge is left with Grace and clearly intrigued by her offer of service to the IMF. He then delivers the ending narration, capping it off with, “Good luck, Ethan.” Will Kittridge be more of an ally to Ethan in “Part Two”? There’s still their unresolved ideological conflict of how to handle the Entity, but they can cross that bridge when they come to it.
Until then, I’d recommend “Ready or Not” if you need a Czerny fix. It’s a delightful horror romp directed by Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin (before they were the stewards of the “Scream” franchise) about newlywed Grace (Samara Weaving) playing the most dangerous game with her new family. Czerny plays her father-in-law, Tony le Domas — Czerny’s casting as a WASP in-law is neck and neck with how perfect he is as Kittridge.
“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” is now playing in theaters.