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COLLATERAL
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2004's Collateral is a bloody and nightmarish thriller that, despite some problems in story structure and character motivation, scores due to some offbeat casting choices and the meticulous direction of Michael Mann.
It is the midnight to dawn shift in Los Angeles where we meet Max (Jamie Foxx), a cab driver who really wants his own limo company even though he's been cabbing it for 12 years. After dropping off an attractive lawyer named Annie (Jada Pinkett Smith)at her office, Max almost misses being hailed by a slick guy in a sharp suit named Vincent (Tom Cruise), who offers Max $600 and a $100 tip, twice his usual evening take, if Max will be his cabbie for the evening and take him to five different locations. Max finds out what's really going on at the first stop while waiting for Vincent to complete his business, a body comes flying out of a window and lands on top of Max's cab. And thus begins an unprecedented nightmare for Max as he becomes the one night transportation for a professional hitman.
Michael Mann should get credit for getting a lot right here in the kind of story he attempts to present here...he does a beautiful job of setting up the midnight to dawn atmosphere which is a perfect setting for this story and in a rare instance where this actually works, Mann allows the story to unfold rather slowly and doesn't telegraph everything that's going to happen in the first ten minutes. During Max's ride with Annie, we know that this woman is going to be involved somehow, but it's not in the way we think. I also liked that our two antagonists are extremely intelligent people...just because a man kills people for a living doesn't mean he has to be a moron and as the story progresses, Vincent is revealed to be a man of intelligent and sophistication and we almost get to liking him, which I'm pretty sure was the intention of Mann and screenwriter Stuart Beattie. Of course, casting one of Hollywood's most likable actors as a straight up villain was a master stroke as well.
There were certain story elements that I had a hard time swallowing. I didn't understand Max's motivation behind throwing away Vincent's briefcase...did he think that was going to stop him? I was shocked it didn't get him killed. I was also surprised when Max pretended to be Vincent and was sent to Felix (Jarvier Bardem) to get the information that Max lost that Felix actually believed he was Vincent. I was also extremely bothered by Max's desperation to get out of this situation and get as far away from Vincent as possible suddenly disappeared when he realized Annie, a virtual stranger, was in danger.
But these minor plot contrivances definitely did not deter my enjoyment of this thundering roller coaster of a ride that offered one surprise after another, particularly in the presentation of two central characters...the story never forgets that Vincent is a professional and that Max is an amateur, a line that films like this tend to cross sometimes and this one never does. The performances are very solid...Cruise is fire and ice as the enigmatic Vincent and Jamie Foxx was nominated for a Supporting Actor Oscar for his Max, though the role really is a leading one...the performance is just as solid as the one that won Foxx an Oscar the same year,(Ray). Mark Ruffalo, Bruce McGill, and Peter Berg round out the strong supporting cast in this stylish action thriller that take a lot of chances that really pay off.
2004's Collateral is a bloody and nightmarish thriller that, despite some problems in story structure and character motivation, scores due to some offbeat casting choices and the meticulous direction of Michael Mann.
It is the midnight to dawn shift in Los Angeles where we meet Max (Jamie Foxx), a cab driver who really wants his own limo company even though he's been cabbing it for 12 years. After dropping off an attractive lawyer named Annie (Jada Pinkett Smith)at her office, Max almost misses being hailed by a slick guy in a sharp suit named Vincent (Tom Cruise), who offers Max $600 and a $100 tip, twice his usual evening take, if Max will be his cabbie for the evening and take him to five different locations. Max finds out what's really going on at the first stop while waiting for Vincent to complete his business, a body comes flying out of a window and lands on top of Max's cab. And thus begins an unprecedented nightmare for Max as he becomes the one night transportation for a professional hitman.
Michael Mann should get credit for getting a lot right here in the kind of story he attempts to present here...he does a beautiful job of setting up the midnight to dawn atmosphere which is a perfect setting for this story and in a rare instance where this actually works, Mann allows the story to unfold rather slowly and doesn't telegraph everything that's going to happen in the first ten minutes. During Max's ride with Annie, we know that this woman is going to be involved somehow, but it's not in the way we think. I also liked that our two antagonists are extremely intelligent people...just because a man kills people for a living doesn't mean he has to be a moron and as the story progresses, Vincent is revealed to be a man of intelligent and sophistication and we almost get to liking him, which I'm pretty sure was the intention of Mann and screenwriter Stuart Beattie. Of course, casting one of Hollywood's most likable actors as a straight up villain was a master stroke as well.
There were certain story elements that I had a hard time swallowing. I didn't understand Max's motivation behind throwing away Vincent's briefcase...did he think that was going to stop him? I was shocked it didn't get him killed. I was also surprised when Max pretended to be Vincent and was sent to Felix (Jarvier Bardem) to get the information that Max lost that Felix actually believed he was Vincent. I was also extremely bothered by Max's desperation to get out of this situation and get as far away from Vincent as possible suddenly disappeared when he realized Annie, a virtual stranger, was in danger.
But these minor plot contrivances definitely did not deter my enjoyment of this thundering roller coaster of a ride that offered one surprise after another, particularly in the presentation of two central characters...the story never forgets that Vincent is a professional and that Max is an amateur, a line that films like this tend to cross sometimes and this one never does. The performances are very solid...Cruise is fire and ice as the enigmatic Vincent and Jamie Foxx was nominated for a Supporting Actor Oscar for his Max, though the role really is a leading one...the performance is just as solid as the one that won Foxx an Oscar the same year,(Ray). Mark Ruffalo, Bruce McGill, and Peter Berg round out the strong supporting cast in this stylish action thriller that take a lot of chances that really pay off.