Solomon Lane: Mission: Impossible Villain, Actor and Fate

Solomon Lane is the leader of the Syndicate, a secret group of rogue former spies, and the main antagonist of Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015), directed by Christopher McQuarrie. He is a British agent who went rogue. Ethan Hunt opens the film chasing a nerve gas shipment tied to the Syndicate, and only in Casablanca does Ilsa Faust name Lane as the man at the top.

Sean Harris plays him in both of his films, and he is billed sixth in each cast list. The credits list the character as Lane in Rogue Nation and as Solomon Lane in Mission: Impossible: Fallout (2018), also directed by McQuarrie. That makes him one of the few villains to come back in the saga, and he is the only one to do so in consecutive films.

In Rogue Nation, Solomon Lane runs a Syndicate plot that moves from a planned assassination at the Vienna opera to a hunt for a digital ledger, and in Fallout he is the man Hunt agrees to deliver to the White Widow before he escapes. The Syndicate tries to kill the Austrian Chancellor at the opera. Hunt foils the shooting, but a car bomb kills the Chancellor anyway, and CIA chief Alan Hunley orders Hunt and Benji hunted down.

In Casablanca, Ilsa names Lane as the Syndicate's leader. The team then steals a ledger from a heavily guarded underwater vault, though Ilsa hands it to her MI6 boss Atlee, who destroys it. Benji had already copied the data. The copy is a locked file that needs the British Prime Minister's biometrics, so Lane's men kidnap Benji and force Hunt to open it. The file gives access to billions of pounds, and Hunt destroys it once he realizes Lane would use the money to fund the Syndicate.

Fallout opens two years after Lane was captured. His remnant group, the Apostles, is working to buy three plutonium cores, and Hunt agrees to deliver Lane to the White Widow in exchange for them. The plan goes wrong and Lane escapes, so Hunt has to chase him down.

Lane is defined by who hunts him: Ethan Hunt, Ilsa Faust, and the agencies on his trail. His bond with Hunt is the central one. In Rogue Nation Lane's men kidnap Benji and force Hunt to open the locked file, and Hunt later offers himself in exchange for Benji, who is wired to a bomb.

Ilsa Faust is the second pillar. She helps Hunt escape the Syndicate early in the film, names Lane in Casablanca, and kills his lieutenant Vinter during the London chase. In Fallout her standing is cleared once Lane is handed over to MI6.

Benji Dunn is the team member Lane uses as leverage. Hunley, played by Alec Baldwin, is the CIA chief who shuts down the IMF while Lane's group operates. In Fallout, the White Widow, played by Vanessa Kirby, becomes the broker who wants Lane delivered, and August Walker is the CIA shadow assigned to Hunt during the chase.

Yes, Solomon Lane is alive at the end of his last appearance, and he does not die in either film: he is trapped in a bulletproof glass cell and captured in Rogue Nation, then handed over to MI6 in Fallout. In Rogue Nation the final confrontation takes place in London, where Ilsa kills Vinter and Lane is caught in the cell and gassed. The Syndicate is exposed and broken up. Hunley then tells the Senate that using Hunt was part of a plan to expose the group, and the IMF is restored.

Fallout brings him back as a prisoner who slips away when the exchange with the White Widow goes wrong, and Hunt has to chase him down again. By the end Lane is returned to custody and Ilsa is freed from suspicion. Neither Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One nor Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning lists him among its leading cast, and the villain of both is Gabriel. For where his story sits among the later films, see the Mission: Impossible timeline.

My pick for his best moment is the glass cell at the end of Rogue Nation, because it settles the chase without killing him. In my opinion that choice is what lets Fallout bring him back, since a villain who is captured can be a prisoner, a bargaining chip and a problem all over again.

The Vienna opera plot comes second. It could be argued that the sequence is built the way a good heist is: the Syndicate stages an assassination, Hunt stops the shooter, and the car bomb still gets through, so the film proves the group is dangerous before Lane is even named.

Third is the Paris deal in Fallout. Perhaps the smartest thing the film does with him is treat him as currency rather than a threat, with Hunt offering to hand him to the White Widow for the plutonium cores. When the exchange collapses, Lane becomes the fuse for the rest of the chase.

If you are new to him, start with Rogue Nation and watch Fallout straight after, as laid out in our Mission: Impossible movies in order guide.