Mission Impossible 9: The Multiplying MacGuffins

INTERIOR: DAY

A man sits at a desk, looking steely and determined. This is JIM. Another man enters. This is JOHN.

JOHN: Sir, we have a situation.

JIM: Any arrangement of people or objects is a situation. You’ll have to be more specific.

JOHN: I feel that’s unnecessarily pedantic, sir.

JIM: So noted. What’ve you got?

JOHN: It’s the MacGuffins, sir. They’re out of control.

JIM: Dammit, John, I didn’t go to film school. What the hell’s a MacGuffin?

JOHN: It’s the thing everyone in the movie’s trying to get hold of. The details are always a little vague, but basically if the bad guys get it, it’s the end of the world.

JIM: I see. And we’re the good guys?

JOHN: Well, this movie’s for an American audience, so yes. 

JIM: So what’s the problem?

JOHN: The MacGuffin's are multiplying, sir. There used to be just one per movie, but recently there have been two, three or even more. And not only do we have to get hold of them, we have to combine them in ridiculously precise ways to avert disaster.

JIM: We’d better call in the All-American Hero.

JOHN: He’s not available, sir, but we have the nerdy but likeable sidekick. Come in, Simon.

SIMON enters

SIMON: Good morning, sir. I’ve been looking into…

JIM quickly reaches into his desk drawer, pulls out a Glock and tries to shoot SIMON, who dives behind a sofa for cover

JOHN: Sir, what the hell are you doing?

JIM: Can’t you hear his British accent? He’s the bad guy!

SIMON: English, actually…

JOHN: No, sir, we’re letting Brits play the sidekick these days.

JIM: We are?

JOHN: For a few years now.

JIM: Dammit, why wasn’t I told?

JOHN: Anyway Simon, you were saying?

SIMON: It’s bad, sir. I’ve looked at the design of the bomb, which implausibly was available on the internet, and it seems to stop it going off we have to get hold of eight different things with ridiculous names and activate them all at exactly the same time. What’s more, one of the people doing it must be halfway up a mountain in the Andes, the second in a shopping centre in Milton Keynes, the third must be dressed in Swiss national costume, the fourth must be named Arthur but prefer to go by his middle name, the fifth must have been born on a Tuesday, the sixth must have a long-lost brother he never speaks to, the seventh must have reached at least Grade 5 in a woodwind instrument but given up playing it years ago, and the eighth must be a distant cousin of one of the others but not realise it. Well don’t look at me like that, I didn’t write the bloody script - I’d hardly have given myself such a pathetic and unrewarding part, would I?

JOHN and JIM collapse from the effects of the nerve agent SIMON surreptitiously released. He peels off his face mask, revealing that he is in fact the All-American Hero.

A-AH: Or would I?

Picture credit: Deep Dream Generator