Collateral (film)

From AwardAnnals

Reviews

Amazon.com

Collateral offers a change of pace for Tom Cruise as a ruthless contract killer, but that’s just one of many reasons to recommend this well-crafted thriller. It’s from Michael Mann, after all, and the director’s stellar track record with crime thrillers (Thief, Manhunter, and especially Heat) guarantees a rich combination of intelligent plotting, well-drawn characters, and escalating tension, beginning here when icy hit-man Vincent (Cruise) recruits cab driver Max (Jamie Foxx) to drive him through a nocturnal tour of Los Angeles, during which he will execute five people in a 10-hour spree. While Stuart Beattie’s screenplay deftly combines intimate character study with raw bursts of action (in keeping with Mann’s directorial trademark), Foxx does the best work of his career to date (between his excellent performance in Ali and his title-role showcase in Ray), and Cruise is fiercely convincing as an ultra-disciplined sociopath. Jada Pinkett-Smith rises above the limitations of a supporting role, and Mann directs with the confidence of a master, turning L.A. into a third major character (much as it was in the Mann-produced TV series Robbery Homicide Division). Collateral is a bit slow at first, but as it develops subtle themes of elusive dreams and lives on the edge, it shifts into overdrive and races, with breathtaking precision, toward a nail-biting climax. —Jeff Shannon

Barnes and Noble

Writer-director Michael Mann redefined the TV cop show with his groundbreaking series Miami Vice, introduced moviegoers to Hannibal Lecter with 1986’s Manhunter, and even turned Will Smith into a dramatic actor with the 2001 biographical film Ali. In Collateral he has crafted an unusually gripping thriller that employs a simple premise, and by casting costars Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx against type he has defied audience expectations and thus rendered the film less predictable than it might otherwise have been. Foxx, heretofore best known for his portrayals of brash, arrogant young men, plays Max, a softspoken, intelligent underachiever driving a cab driver on the night shift in Los Angeles. One of his fares, a calm, quiet man who identifies himself as Vincent (Cruise), turns out to be a contract killer in the process of eliminating witnesses about to testify against a narco-terrorist. Mann puts viewers inside the cab with these two men, contrasting Foxx’s mounting panic (as he realizes he’s implicated in Vincent’s crimes) with Cruise’s self-assurance and resolve. A peculiar relationship develops between the two, and in between shootings Vincent becomes an almost avuncular figure to Max, dispensing advice on business and personal matters and even allowing the cabbie to make his nightly visit to his ailing mother. Irma P. Hall plays the mom, and she’s one of a handful of exceptionally fine actors Mann casts in relatively small roles. Mark Ruffalo plays an LAPD detective assigned to the first murder, Peter Berg is his partner, Bruce McGill is a by-the-book FBI agent, and Javier Bardem is Vincent’s contractor. Nominal leading lady Jada Pinkett Smith has a small but pivotal role as the federal prosecutor Max delivers to work in the film’s opening sequence. Through onscreen a relatively short time, these accomplished players add a great deal to the proceedings; by utilizing such top-flight talent, Mann achieves a dramatic texture that would have been missed had the parts been assigned to competent but less colorful supporting actors. What’s more, the conviction they bring to their roles helps dissipate the fog of incredulity that wafts through the picture; some of the situations are absurd, but you’d never know that from the way they are described or enacted by the cast. Like all Mann films, Collateral looks spectacular. Shot with high-definition video cameras instead of film, nighttime Los Angeles takes on an alluring, ethereal glow that makes the city as much a presence in this story as the actors. Even more impressive is Mann’s obvious determination to avoid the hackneyed. Collateral may be incredible, but it’s never predictable—which is a whole lot more than you can say for most thrillers these days. Ed Hulse

Related works

Collateral: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Various Artists

Director Michael Mann’s gritty urban thriller revolves around a Los Angeles cabbie (Jamie Foxx) taken hostage on his late-night rounds by charming mob hit man Tom Cruise. Mann’s penchant for uniquely eclectic film scores has previously encompassed everything from the electronica-suffused world beat of Ali to the brooding, ambient post-modernism of The Insider. Here Mann effectively cobbles together an even more far-ranging musical landscape, one that echoes LA’s rich multi-culturalism (the savory, nouveau Latin rhythms of Guero Canelo’s “Calexico,”…