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Overall Rating
  Awesome: 25.41%
Worth A Look: 41.44%
Average: 17.13%
Pretty Bad: 11.6%
Total Crap: 4.42%
14 reviews, 97 user ratings
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| Collateral |
by Smiles
"Tom Cruise didn't suck"
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When you hear about a movie where two men hang out, drive cars around and shoot guns, you think – there goes the latest Hollywood ‘buddy’ film. But to put Michael Mann’s Collateral in the same category as Lethal Weapon doesn’t do either film justice.When you hear about a movie where two men hang out, drive cars around and shoot guns, you think – there goes the latest Hollywood ‘buddy’ film. But to put Michael Mann’s Collateral in the same category as Lethal Weapon doesn’t do Collateral (or either film for that matter) justice.
Collateral follows the events of one night in L.A. where Vincent (Tom Cruise) hires taxi cab driver Max (Jamie Foxx) to make five stops. Vincent just needs to get some work done and visit old friends. It looks innocent enough to Max: drive to five places, make $600. Sounds just plain peachy, until stop number one ends up dead on the roof of Max’s car -thanks to Vincent’s gun and a four story fall. And Vincent is not finished there – he has four more stops to make with Max as the getaway driver.
And that it the plot – just like in the trailer. And there is beauty in a movie story line that is not so complicated that you don’t know what is going on (like Cruise’s Mission Impossible) and not so improbable that you doubt it could ever really happen (again, like Cruises’ Mission Impossible). It is elegant enough to allow the audience to get to know these men while at the same time engaging us in a mystery we want to figure out. And the lack of crazy twists and turn allows for some light humor – like when Foxx tries to break a door with a trash can and it just bounces off not making a dent in the door (that totally would happen to me). It even allows quite character realizations that don’t seem forced or out of place – such as when Vincent stingingly points out that Max will never start a limo service since he has been driving a cab for 12 years on a ‘part time’ basis.
This role is a departure for Cruise. We are used to seeing him as a play boy or hero but not the villain (okay he was not exactly the nicest guy in Magnolia but that was not a mainstream leading role like this). But from the moment we see him in that streamlined gray suit (not to mention the gray hair), it is very clear that this is no ordinary Tom Cruise movie. And where the suit leaves off Cruise’s acting takes over. To overcome such a strong built in audience perception is not a small task and Cruise handles it well. He manages to make this sociopath hit man someone we understand and, for fleeting moments, root for.
Foxx is no slouch either and delivers just as powerful a performance. He has his own image as a funny guy for audiences to get past. And his delivery of Max makes it easy to do so. You yearn with him he talks about his dreams of setting up a limo service. You freak out with him when he is blubbering over the man who has just fallen on the roof of his cab, because you know that is what you would do to (come on now – you know you would!). And in the end you cheer for him when he finally breaks under the strain and goes after Vincent himself.
The supporting cast is a nice gem as well. Jada Pinkett Smith is the passenger before Vincent is Max’s car, and even though they are separated by a plastic divider, you can feel the sparks between them. Mark Ruffalo is such a chameleon of an actor it is almost hard to recognize him as an undercover narcotics cop. Javier Bardem makes a nice thug and there is even a few second appearance by tough guy Jason Statham.
Under pinning it all is Michael Mann’s direction. Using almost extreme close ups in the taxi cab and realistically lit L.A. exteriors and interiors, the focus is always on the story and not necessarily the action. But with such a defined subject and time frame for the movie, the motivation for the action is occasionally a bit off. Such as using a visit to Max’s mom in the hospital to get the guys out of the cab (would you take a hit man to see your mother?). And the last thirty minutes seems to have a different pace than the rest of the film. But despite these small snags the whole package sells the story well. The question is whether it will sell at the box office. The lack of huge explosions and the abundance of conversation make this more a movie for the fall film fanatic rather than the summer block buster brigade.Not your average buddy film.
 del.icio.us 
link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=10300&reviewer=383
originally posted: 08/30/05 01:19:57
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OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2005 Sydney Film Festival For more in the 2005 Sydney Film Festival series, click here.
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USA
06-Aug-2004 (R)
DVD: 14-Dec-2004
UK
N/A
Australia
14-Oct-2004
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