A Review by Phil Calabro
2004, Dreamworks SKG, Dir. Michael Mann - Starring Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith, Mark Ruffalo, Peter Berg, Bruce McGill, Irma Hall, Chi McBride, Barry Shabaka Henly, Debi Mazar, Emilio Rivera
The cabbie joints in the big cities are some of the most strenuous and interesting jobs in metropolitans - you become very street smart, you encounter all different sorts of people, and you do all of this only by earning only a bit of money. For Max (played by Jamie Foxx), he has encountered some weird people, and the one day he thinks his life is looking up on him, his life makes a big U-turn - he'll never experience a night like again.
Max is a cabbie in LA, and after a nightly encounter with a lovely lawyer Annie (Smith), he gives a ride to a very friendly but shady man named Vince (Cruise). Vince asks him to do five rounds for him, and to stick with him all the way. But when a body flies out a window and onto his cab, he find out the shocking truth - Vince is a hit-man, and Max is his new chauffeur. As the night passes, Max becomes aware of what he has to do to get Vince off of his hands, and to stop his entire plan. And when he thinks he's gotten away with him, he finds out he's going to strike down the best thing to him - Annie.
Tom Cruise is the supposed center piece to this movie, but he no unique qualities are displayed in his character. He's just another one of those ordinary "lunatic-killer-on-the-fridge-but-has-a-sympathetic-motive" folks, and there's nothing new here. He's rusty, unshaven, and occasionally wild, but for the most part, he's a boring and uninteresting hitman. Foxx is interesting, merely because of his whole coming-of-age breakthrough within the end of the movie - he knocks Cruise off his feet with his honest emotions. I found him to be very inpredictable in this movie. Jada Pinkett Smith is alright as the little loose love-interest, and fits well with Foxx for chemistry.
The movie is half-good, half-bad. The bad parts lie in the way the film presents itself. It feels more like an "amazing twist ending movie, and that you don't know what's coming to you next" - and this false hope is thrown away, playing out like an ordinary cut-and-paste thriller for the remaining time. Some of the characters are stupid and useless, and played as tokens. But the good part, which isn't a lot, is the ending. The final 20 minutes of the movie will keep you sitting at the edge of your seat, like a real thriller should be - and it ends off with a great metaphorical note that requires paying attention to the beginning of the film.
Collateral is not a top-notch thriller, but by no means a terrible movie. It features some great suspenseful moments thanks to Foxx's brilliance, but most of it is just plain old fluff from sub-par director Michael Mann (who made the respectively sub-par Heat and Manhunter). In this case, the movie's a total hit-and-run.
2/4 stars
