Jeremy Renner wears a Rolex Submariner

Midway through Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, William Brandt stands in a dim sandstone interior in a white dress shirt, both arms locked out in front of him, aiming a pistol two-handed. Jeremy Renner plays Brandt, and the first thing the film tells you about him is a lie: he introduces himself as an IMF analyst. He is not. Brad Bird directed the picture, and Renner plays Brandt as a man pretending to be a desk jockey while carrying the reflexes and the guilt of a field operative, until by the Dubai sequences he is dropping down ventilation shafts alongside Ethan Hunt.

On the wrist gripping that pistol is a Rolex Submariner Date, the ceramic-bezel reference 116610, though the gun and his own hands cover most of the case in this shot. The 116610LN arrived in 2010, the first Submariner Date to trade Rolex's old aluminum bezel insert for a scratch-proof black Cerachrom one, on the slightly broader case with thicker lugs and crown guards that collectors call the Maxi. For a film shot in 2011 it is the current Submariner of its moment, era-correct down to the year. There is a small joke in the choice. The Submariner has been the default wristwatch of movie spies since Sean Connery wore one in Dr. No, so handing one to an IMF agent is the on-the-nose pick, and also the right one. No buzz-saw bezel, no magnetic-field generator, just a real diver's watch, capable and unflashy, which is the same trick Brandt is running on everyone around him: conservative enough to pass for an analyst, tough enough for the job he actually does.