There were some impossible calculations made this summer in the making and marketing of Tom Cruise’s seventh mission as Ethan Hunt, the gambit of a gargantuan almost $300m budget yet to prove a decision well-made, the sequel heading for a somewhat destructive financial reckoning. But before the final tally is in, the film’s production company Skydance is hoping for a far easier win with similarly themed thriller Heart of Stone, a potential Netflix franchise-starter, cushioned by lower costs and lower stakes.
There’s also, predictably, a lower level of enjoyment to be had here but given the sky-high bar Cruise has set for the Mission: Impossible series, that doesn’t mean that the streamer’s copycat caper is as unrewarding as one might expect. Netflix’s big-boy actioners have mostly felt more mock than blockbuster, from 6 Underground to The Gray Man to Red Notice, pale imitations of films that were already pale imitations of something else in the first place. But Heart of Stone, as disposable and derivative as it might be, is a notable step up, playing a simple, sturdy game but playing it well, a surer hand gliding us through familiar territory. That hand belongs to British director Tom Harper, who cut his teeth on cinematic shows like Misfits and Peaky Blinders before impressing with crowd-pleasing music drama Wild Rose and baffling with Oscar-bait balloon adventure The Aeronauts. Together with his longtime cinematographer George Steel, he gives it both a sustained jolt of adrenaline and a sleek, glossy sheen often absent on Netflix, where too many washed out films look as if they were shot in murky rooms where someone had just been smoking.
