COMING HOME

Jon Voight and Jane Fonda

COMING HOME (1978). Director: Hal Ashby.

Sally Hyde (Jane Fonda of Joy House) is married to Captain Bob Hyde (Bruce Dern of Family Plot), who is fighting in Vietnam. During his absence she decides to volunteer at a military hospital where injured soldiers are being treated and recuperating. One of those soldiers, Luke (Jon Voight of National Treasure) is an angry fellow with paralyzed legs, and someone Sally used to go to school with. The two are drawn into a friendship, and then a physical and emotional love affair, and then Bob comes home ... Although Coming Home couldn't have been made during Hollywood's Golden Age for obvious reasons [and very differing attitudes], one still suspects that this could have been a truly great film had it been crafted by, say, William Wyler. Hal Ashby [Shampoo] isn't quite up to the task, and some important scenes have less dramatic heft because of it. Still Coming Home does examine the varying attitudes of the country during the Vietnam conflict, the experiences of some soldiers when they come home bent and broken, the changing role of women and housewives, and adds a poignant romantic dilemma to all of it as well. The script sort of lets you down just when it most needs to be working, unfortunately. Jane Fonda and Jon Voight are okay -- Voight has a particularly good scene when he's talking to college students -- but Dern, in the least sympathetic role [until the end] pretty much walks off with the picture. Penelope Milford makes an impression as Sally's new friend, Vi, and Robert Carradine does the best he can with the under-written role of her mentally disturbed veteran brother, Billy. The soundtrack consists of some evocative seventies rock music, often used quite adroitly. A sub-plot in which Sally tries to get the women who run the hospital newspaper to run articles that may actually be helpful to the recovering vets and is rebuffed is important but dropped too quickly. Dern was also the murder victim in Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte. Ashby also directed Being There with Peter Sellers.

Verdict: Just misses being a great movie. ***.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE

Ethan Hunt (Cruise) faces down "Max" (Redgrave)

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (1996). Director: Brian De Palma.

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is on a special "impossible" mission for the IMF [Impossible Missions Force] in Prague when everything goes south and his teammates are slaughtered all around him.  He is told by Kittridge (Henry Czerny, who plays Conrad Grayson on TV's Revenge) that the whole operation was merely a ruse to flush out a mole in the organization. Since Ethan appears to be the only one of the group who's still alive, he becomes the chief suspect and goes on the run. Trying to track down whoever murdered his comrades, he enters into a phony alliance with an arms dealer known only as "Max" (Vanessa Redgrave) and in the film's most suspenseful sequence must steal a list of important names from a nearly impregnable vault while hanging just inches from the ceiling; there is also a thrilling climax involving a helicopter and a high-speed train. While purists may quibble over the identity of the mastermind behind the dire plot, Mission: Impossible is an excellent update of and tribute to the very popular and long-running TV show, equally absurd at times but always fun. Cruise is well suited to this kind of material and does it well, while Jon Voight is fine as IMF head Jim Phelps. Jean Reno, Kristin Scott Thomas, Ving Rhames, and Emmanuelle Beart also have important roles. For some reason Emilio Estevez is uncredited as Jack, an early casualty of the IMF in Prague, although his performance is solid. Vanessa Redgrave is just splendid in her unusual turn as Max. The movie wisely uses Lalo Schifrin's theme music from the television program. Followed by three sequels.

Verdict: One of the classier television adaptations to hit theaters. ***1/2.