How twenty rhames has become the true heart of the mission: Impossible franchise | Features

“Why is the black man still dies in the first 10 pages?”

Luther Stickell, played by twenty Rhames, was supposed to die in the first film “Mission: Impossible”. Brian de Palma’s film in 1995 eliminated almost all the characters from the television show and radically changed the man who stayed, all to leave Tom Cruise’s new recruit to the IMF, Ethan Hunt, like the last. Rhames, fresh out of the success of “Pulp Fiction”, was going to be another victim. But, as he explained in an interview in 2025 with Screen Rant, it changed when he asked this question to cruise. Cruise accepted, and therefore Luther remained, becoming the beating heart of the franchise and a cruelly necessary reminder of the talent of rhames.

Many has been written on the evolution of “Mission: Impossible”, coming from an IP reinvention and a star vehicle for Tom Cruise towards a labyrinthine cavalcade of waterfalls and strong sensations with high concept, all gathered by the last movie star. The final, “The Final Reckoning”, has certainly proven to be a prolonged victory tour for Cruise, a real global icon capable of doing things that no one in the entertainment industry could never dare to reproduce. The franchise was maintained together by his presence, Ethan Hunt and his maniac race acting as a captain, while the directors and the characters came and came. These films have always attracted first -rate talents, even for the ungrateful roles. But Cruise was not the only constant in “Mission: Impossible”. Stay just behind him and on the side for the eight films was the only other other character present in each episode, and he was very late.

Luther is a world class pirate who, like Ethan, is disowned by the IMF and is forced to work out of the grid to erase their names. Thus begins a beautiful friendship that sees Stickell becoming Ethan’s “second eyes” and guide the hand for the rest of his career, officially or otherwise. He is there to open doors, divert cameras, decode secrets and make sure that Ethan has the most fluid path possible for his mission. As the series progresses, Luther is firmly established as Ethan’s best friend, and perhaps even the most important companion in his strange and hot life. He is even there to help Ethan’s wife, Julia (Michelle Monaghan), to find ways to retaliate if someone tries to reach her husband through her. When things become tense, Luther is there to calm down. Even when he is not part of the main mission, as is the case in “Ghost Protocol”, he is still there at the end to share a beer, simulated Ethan’s One-Liners and recalls good times.

It is difficult to remain anchored when your franchise always targets the stars (generally so that its hero can fall among them from a great height). The major attraction of the series has become its eagerness to surpass itself with each new move, Cruise bending its megastar weight through self-realized cascades which have become increasingly dangerous. This flex has helped to rehabilitate the cruise with the public after his nadir of sofa jumping and preach from Scientology, but to become M. Invincible made him seem much less human. The mission: impossible films have continued to give female characters to Ethan to make it more accessible (generally by offering them), but it has never seemed as real as necessary.

But there was Luther: fiercely faithful, level, stoic but not apathetic and strangely comforting. Rhames is the king of stoic charm, and Luther is the safe port of Ethan in the endless storm of subterfuge and danger. Where Benji de Simon Pegg, introduced into the third film, is more harassed and disconcerted by the situation in which he is, Luther is the regular hand, the hetero man with dry jokes. There is also weariness there in the shoulders of rhamas, often behind a computer, while he tries to act as a guide and an occasional moral conscience to the ultimate hero. The cruise can be ageless, but Rhames has the signs of time. It brings an undeniable pathos to their relationship, even when it comes to mid-term or chewing exhibition chapters. Rhames plays Luther as a man who has really seen all this but who always believes in his guy. And so we too.

Ethan’s true affection for his family found is more obvious in his relationship with Luther. When Ethan tells him “the dead”, “your life will always be more important to me than mine”, he rejects the affirmation of Luther that “none of our lives can be more important than this mission”. You never doubt the loyalty of Luther either, or that he threw himself in front of a bullet for his friend. The steel strength with which he reminds William Brandt in “Rogue Nation” that Ethan is his sufficient friend to make a potential traitor in the tremor instead.

One of the host moments of the real tears in the series comes in “Fallout” when Luther tells Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) about Ethan’s wife and the heavy price that we pay to stay alongside Ethan. “If you care about him, you should move away,” he said to Ilsa through his tears. It is an act of compassion, the kind of rupture of the usual stoicism of Rhames which reveals humanity in the midst of motorcycle flips. Whenever you watch the movies and you wonder why the devil someone stays to help Ethan hunt from another cataclysm, Luther’s calm words remind you that there is a hell of a good reason. There is a touching quality in Rhames, a disturbing physical presence with this distinctive voice, representing a figure of platonic love dedicated to another man, and so that it is so fully reciprocal by Cruise.

Rhames has not always obtained the roles he deserves, but he remains one of the most reliable support players of his generation. His distinctive voice can make any Sound Mumbo-Jumbo Shakespearean. In “Pulp Fiction”, his character Marcellus Wallace is presented to the public from behind, a ghost that is discussed by others, and often with fear. But Rhames, even with the camera concentrated on his neck, makes you fully aware that everyone is right to be afraid of their power. He obtained one of his juicest roles as a paramedical ambulancer in the cigarette butt in a penchant to preach in “bring out the dead”, a role depending on his innate capacity to balance gravity with a sense of powerful humor.

It is Luther in a word, but with more technological jargon: the authority that seems to be aware of the ridiculous of his situation. That and he’s so cool. You do not hire twenty rhames to play a nerd, even when it is the greatest pirate on the planet. Even Tom Cruise looks Néblanc compared to the suavensity of Rhames.

“The final calculation”, it seems fortunately, seems to be aware of the importance of rhames for the franchise and gives it an end worthy of its stature in this long and sprawling arc. Admittedly, no one could have predicted how a remake of a television program from the 1960s would evolve towards one of the most durable and daring series of modern cinema. This allowed a planned bit-party player to become a crucial support player whose presence was indelible for the success of the films. In a machine as well oiled and sophisticated as the Mission series: Impossible, Rhames was the cog that made everything advance.