Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Almost Gave Simon Pegg A Really Dark Character Moment
This article contains spoilers for "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One."
Benji Dunn is the heart and soul of the "Mission: Impossible" franchise. That isn't just me saying that. Christopher McQuarrie used that exact phrasing to describe Simon Pegg's character and performance in one of his appearances on the Light the Fuse podcast. More so than anyone else in the series — even including Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt — Benji has grown tremendously. We first see him in "Mission: Impossible III" for a couple of scenes as a lab technician at IMF headquarters who decides to help Ethan, and throughout the series, he's become a field agent integral to saving the world, pushing himself further outside just being the "guy at the computer" every time out. With that growth also comes a greater attachment with him to the rest of the team, especially Ethan.
One of Benji's big moments in the fast-paced thrill ride of "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One" is him trying to diffuse a supposed nuclear bomb in the Abu Dhabi airport by participating in a psychometric test designed specifically for him, filled with personal questions and riddles. When the bomb asks him what matters the most to him and he responds with, "My friends," you believe him because of that journey he's been on for five movies.
McQuarrie is digging further into these characters as he becomes the franchise's co-steward along with Tom Cruise, and he also wants to find their darker sides. This is obviously the most true with Ethan, especially in "Fallout" and "Dead Reckoning Part One," but it is true for the other characters as well. In this film, Benji was set to have his darkest moment yet, but it turned out to be a bit too dark than anyone desired, something that would've just been a bummer instead of enlightening.
Benji and self-harm
The proposed darkness in Benji was to rear its head in the aforementioned psychometric test sequence. As that is a sequence that explicitly looks to expose Benji's thoughts and fears, it only makes sense that the evil A.I. called "The Entity" would want to find the darkness inside him. On a recent episode of The Empire Podcast, Simon Pegg recalled the question that would have said something truly sad about Benji:
"The bomb asked Benji if he's ever thought about hurting himself or others. It's like a classic question that you ask people in a psychiatric exam, right? And Benji says 'No,' and the bomb tells him that he's lied. So Benji has to admit that he's kind of self-harmed, and the audience f***ing hated the idea ... So we changed the question to, 'Are you afraid of death?' Which actually came up with a great moment, when he says, 'Who isn't?!'"
Beyond the fact that the image of Benji self-harming is immensely troubling, what bothers me most about it is that I don't believe it's in keeping with the character. Benji is an incredibly anxious person, but he's not a depressive one. Nothing about his behavior in any of these movies, including "Dead Reckoning Part One," signals a dissatisfaction with himself or his circumstances. He even explicitly states to Hayley Atwell's Grace later in the film that he's there because he wants to be.
If it was not an admission of self-harm but a desire to hurt others, that also doesn't fit with Benji's character, someone with a deep well of love for people. He wants to save the world and his friends, not take out his aggression on an enemy. The replacement question is far better suited to Benji and actually does reach his core.
Fear of death is far more accurate
The original inclination of the scene was to explore Benji's PTSD from his previous missions, having been extremely close to death on several occasions. They felt that could manifest itself in Benji self-harming. Simon Pegg continued on to say:
"Benji had been almost killed in 'Fallout.' Ilsa saved his life. And we were talking about how this weighs on him, and how he was kind of close to the edge. In a few earlier iterations of the script, Benji was having moments of doubt. In the end, that stuff felt like it wasn't really necessary, and we wanted to concentrate on the team dynamic and have the audience infer certain things about where they are emotionally. So that felt a little too on the nose, and we moved on from it."
As I said, Benji is an anxious person, and these near-death experiences he's lived through over time, I think, would naturally just make him more anxious and, in turn, more protective. By switching the question from the bomb to "Are you afraid of death?," they are actually addressing a true fear of having a job like this, and even though he expresses his fear, he's still barreling through with these missions that could get him killed anyway. That shows a nobility in Benji that connects him once again to be the franchise's heart and soul.
Test audiences can be extremely beneficial when making a movie, and they were right on the money with this one. "It was too dark. My character score went up like ten percent after they took that question out," Pegg said on the podcast, and it's very easy to understand why. It's one thing to take a note. It's another to find the perfect solution. And they did.
"Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One" is currently in theaters. "Part Two" is set to hit theaters in 2024.