When you sit down in the theaters to watch Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning – Part 1, you know what you’re getting, more or less. There will be some kind of impossible mission that requires Tom Cruise to jump off of something, crash something, or otherwise put his own life–and the lives of anyone around him–in immeasurable amounts of danger so he and his team can save the world. Oftentimes, one of those put in danger is none other than his sidekick Benji (Simon Pegg). Benji’s more than a sidekick, though; he’s the beating heart of the movies.
See, while Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is an unstoppable spy machine, Benji is more often than not portrayed as the everyman in the series. We’ve seen him gaming at his desk, and even unknowingly stumbling into one of Ethan’s catastrophes while taking in the opera. It’s certainly nothing like the largely quiet life he must have dreamed of–and thank goodness for that. Without Benji to bring emotion and realism to the team, it could be argued that we would have tired of Mission Impossible a number of films ago. After all, while a series of movies with little more than Tom Cruise putting on masks and running around the world sounds fun, it would wear thin after a while.
Instead, we have a well-rounded team, with Benji’s existence feeling the most realistic of any of the franchise’s characters. He’s a person who doesn’t hide the dream or emotion he’s feeling, choosing instead to let his IMF team know the real him, whether that’s cracking wise at the right moment to add a bit of levity or throwing himself in the line of fire, not just because the world is at stake, but because you love your friends. He’s also prone to the occasional mistake, which typically ends up being one of the more entertaining moments in any Mission Impossible film as the rest of the team tries to fix it before they’re discovered or killed. His presence helps to ground these films in a way that help to elevate them beyond action schlock.
“I think [Benji] has always been the kind of emotional core of things because he’s probably the most relatable character–because he’s a little bit more ordinary, I suppose, in his outlook of everything,” Pegg explained to GameSpot. “He’s the first person to ask, ‘Why the hell are we doing this? Why is this happening to us?’ You know, Ethan is so focused, and Luther is just an old pro. And so it’s up to Benji to kind of bring that humanity to it. That’s not to suggest that either of those characters don’t have it, because obviously, Ethan is driven by the love of his friends. He will always put them first, even if the world is at stake.”
While Pegg is quick to note the humanity of Benji’s fellow IMF agents, overlooking how key he is to the team would be a mistake. It also overlooks the history of this character and his relationship with Ethan. It was back in Mission Impossible 3 that we first met Benji, who was little more than an IMF technician helping Ethan analyze files from a laptop. Almost immediately, Ethan knew he could trust Benji, even if he weren’t the typical IMF agent he was used to–and he’s relied on him ever since.
What’s more, in a world where they are regularly told they will be disavowed by their employers if something goes wrong–an industry where loyalty often goes to the highest bidder–Benji is not only fiercely loyal, but fiercely protective of his friends, often acting in the face of his own fears and walking directly into danger.
For someone like Ethan, who has essentially been built for this lifestyle, trained endlessly, and focused on the mission at hand every time, jumping into these terrifying situations seems to be second nature. For Benji, though, every time he’s about to do something he himself would probably label “stupid,” we see him reason it out and ultimately always end up siding with those he’s most loyal to. He may not be the prototypical action hero, but he knows what’s right and he knows who he needs to protect the most.
Thankfully, Benji has had extreme luck (and Ethan) on his side throughout the movies he’s appeared in. Still, there’s a number of harrowing situations in each of the films, including Dead Reckoning, that beg the question of whether it’s actually worth it for the IT-guy-turned-spy. A focus of the movie is “the choice” made by every IMF agent to step away from their individual lives to become covert agents. It’s a choice they all made, including Benji. That’s enough to leave Pegg thinking about whether or not his character ultimately regrets the choice he made.
“I always feel like I think Benji was a hacker,” Pegg admitted. “I think he hacked into an extremely sensitive US database when he was a teenager, when he was living in the UK [and], he was extradited to America and then given the choice [to join the IMF] because he was very talented. But he did choose to go into the field, and I think he’s there come rain or shine now. And of course, he will always question it, but I don’t think he regrets it.”
While he may not regret it, we’ve yet to see exactly what his home life is like outside of these perilous missions he’s repeatedly sent on. As for what Pegg thinks Benji does in his downtime, he jokes, “I think it’s exclusively Call of Duty.” As for any kind of romantic life outside of work, the actor has no idea what his character does, though he compares the IMF to the priesthood.
“I think once you join the IMF, it’s sort of akin to deferring a prison sentence in a way you commit your life to it. It’s like the priesthood or something,” he said. “So yeah, I’m sure he just probably plays a lot of RPGs online.”
Chances are we won’t see Benji playing Call of Duty or Diablo 4 in the new Mission Impossible film, but certainly, he will wind up in some very dangerous situations when Dead Reckoning – Part 1 hits theaters on July 12.
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