Why doesn't Ethan Hunt have to wear identification?

Raymond Chen

Whenever there was a scene in Mission: Impossible III that took place at the agency offices, I was repeatedly bothered by the fact that all the people in the building are wearing their identification badges clipped to their jackets or shirts. Except Ethan Hunt. He gets to walk through the halls like a cologne advertisement. Why doesn’t he have to wear identification? His boss has to wear identification. His boss’s boss has to wear identification. But Ethan Hunt gets to just wander around in black looking cool without any unsightly identification tag that would ruin the look of whole outfit. I was also somewhat off-put, as was Bob Mondello, that the producers thought it necessary to identify cities on-screen as “Berlin, Germany”, “Rome, Italy”, and “Shanghai, China”. Do they think we’re so stupid that we don’t know where Berlin is?

(And keep an eye out for the American-style fire alarm during the chase through Shanghai just as Ethan Hunt turns a corner. At first glance I thought it said “REEB”, but upon further reflection I believe the last two letters are more likely to be “FD”—”fire department”. I don’t know what the first two letters stand for, or even if I remembered them correctly.)

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