Mission Impossible

"Mission Impossible" could easily be a reference to just how hard it is to find anyone who will speak Arabic with me in Bahrain, and while that is definitely a candidate for a future post, right now I’m actually talking about the Mission Impossible that will be familiar to millions of teenage boys the world over. The I-have-no-idea-which-one out of I-have-no-idea-how-manyeth installment of the Tom Cruise action series, in which he plays a secret agent working for, believe it or not, the IMF. Fostering global monetary cooperation and facilitating international trade never looked so good!

Back home, there is no chance I would have paid money to see a movie subtitled “Ghost Protocol”, even if Wes Anderson directed Bill Murray in it. Unfortunately, so long as we’re unwilling to drive further than the 20-screen mega-plex at the City Centre mall, Transformers III might be just about as art-house as we’re going to get here in Bahrain.

It’s too bad – because the theatre itself is kind of awesome. It is absolutely massive, with lovely stadium seating, and a sound system that is so powerful that you can barely hear anyone in the audience talking on their phones. If you must see an action movie, this is the place to do it. I didn’t really need the huge screen, though, because I was so excited about the Arabic subtitles at the bottom of it that I barely had time to look at anything else. It’s gratifying to know that after two years of study, I have nearly large enough a vocabulary that I could script a block-buster action film in classical Arabic. Now, if I could only learn enough of the local dialect to conduct a three-minute interview for the newlywed couple who are just trying to get a visa to go to Disneyworld for their honeymoon.

*Spoiler Alert*

The absolute highlight of the film, though, was watching the reaction of the audience when the story shifted to this part of the world. The second the camera began to pan over sand dunes and the subtitles lit up with the word “Dubai”, people started pointing at the screen and a delighted buzz rippled through the audience. I expect it must have been nice to watch a Hollywood action flick where the bad guys were Swedes and the only negative role the Arabs played was building the world’s tallest building in the middle of a real estate collapse.

Oh, and lest anyone worry that everyone in this part of the world wants to see America’s downfall – when the nuclear missile that threatened to destroy San Francisco fell harmlessly into the bay, the audience actually clapped. Can you imagine that in the US? I think American audiences across large parts of the country would have been a little disappointed to see San Francisco survive un-annihilated*

*Not me, I like San Francisco. I can’t understand why JJ Abrahms keeps trying to blow it up in his films. First the Romulans and now the Russians? Poor San Francisco, though it’s nice to see NYC getting a break from all that make-believe destruction.