We open on an airport. Modern. Clean. Busy.
Families, couples, tour groups all mill around ground staff, check-in desks and those elasticated, rope queuing things.
Ethan (Tom Cruise) has adopted an unassuming identity for this most impossible of missions.
He is passing himself off as a lunchtime DJ from national radio station, Today FM, Dave Moore. Tall, ruggedly handsome and ever so charming (screw you guys, this is my fake movie trailer!), he walks with his wife (Thandie Newton cos my mate Trina always says she looks like ethnic Tracy). Tracy is the busiest woman in Ireland. She manages to run a house, raise four kids and deal with a dog, who is actually a better escape artist than Houdini, while still looking hotter than any woman alive.
The camera watches them make their way into the airport with a trolley full of cases, a double buggy (UPPABaby Vista in yellow) with two beautiful seven-month-old twin girls in it, a three-year-old cheeky monkey on the attached skateboard thing and a legend of a five-year-old (sorry, 5 1/2 year old, he’s just corrected me) leading the way.
The tension is palpable. Ethan/Tom/Dave is on edge (jaypers, this is complicated). The mission is unlike anything he’s faced before. He is hyper-alert. His eyes dart from side to side, constantly scanning his surroundings. Has one of his kids has checked into a flight to Magaluf or slipped onto an Aircoach into Harcourt St (free wi-fi, could happen)?
They’re all still accounted for, as the family of six approaches the baggage drop-off counter. Then, it hits him. He never weighed the suitcases. Damn it! Such a rookie mistake for such an experienced agent. 20kg a bag sounds like plenty until you start chucking in Ella’s Kitchen pouches, boxes of Aptamil milk powder and Tracy’s vast shoe collection.
A bead of sweat drops from his brow and hits the first suitcase, as he lifts it up onto the weighing belt thingamajig.
The camera jump-cuts between his sweating brow and the weight read-out. 19.8, 19.9, 20.2, 20.0, 19.8…it finally settles on 19.9kg. A small victory. We think all is ok, as he moves for the next case. That is until he realises that this is the case the two boys helped to pack.
Two beads of sweat fall onto the case. The Fireman Sam Fire Station. It was just there. On the floor beside Andrew’s bed. Samuel loves it. He sees an open case, he’s going to shove it in. Then, Andrew would see him doing it and want to add his almost-completed Match Attax folder. (Actually, if anyone has the Arsenal club badge and West Brom’s Jonas Olsson, post them into Today FM so he can finish it off before the new season one comes out. Sound.) Would they have done this? There’s no way the case will make it if they have. What is it? A tenner a kg? More?
Ethan/Tom/Dave steadies his nerves. He’s the best damned agent out there. He can do this. The case goes up. 15.9kg. Yesssssssss!
We time-lapse through security until we see the family approach. Coins, phones, iPad, MacBook, belt, baby food, baby milk, they all get put into trays. The girls have to be taken out of the buggy and carried through the beeper, scanning yoke. But the order matters. Sam won’t go through to the security guard on the other side and Andrew will just run off into the Duty-Free area and jump into the Porsche 911 that some guy is selling tickets to win. (Does anyone ever win those cars? Seriously?!?) So the order is like that riddle with the farmer, the fox, the chicken, the grain and the raft.
First, Tracy/Thandie goes through with Nina. Then, Sam follows. Then Andrew. Then the buggy. Then, finally, Anna in Dad/Tom/Ethan/Dave’s arms. The baby food is scanned. Everything passes and they disappear into the crowd…
Fade to Black.
The Mission: Impossible 6 theme plays.
We see Ethan/Tom/Dave one more time. He is on the flight. We are tight on his eyes. A solitary tear drops from one eye and runs down his cheek. The camera pulls back. He has a twin in each arm. They’re both wailing. One has been sick on his shoulder. Tracy/Thandie is trying to get Sam out of the window seat to take him to the toilet. He doesn’t want to go. He wants to watch Big Hero 6. He is also crying. As he is lifted unceremoniously from his seat, his trailing leg knocks Andrew’s juice onto his lap. Now, everyone is crying. They have become THAT family.
The camera flies out the window of the plane. Fade to Black again.
Text on screen reads:
Based on actual events on the August Bank Holiday Monday flight from Dublin to Malaga.
Jaysus.
I am David Zachary John Moore. I am married to Tracy (who used to be Velcro Girl on 2Phat). We have four kids: Andrew, Samuel, and twins, Nina and Anna. We have a dog called Lorna, a lurcher we rescued in 2005. She can leap a 9-foot wall in one go. I am tired.
