Collateral

by Joe Barber on Aug.06, 2004, under Joe Barber's Movie Reviews

Joe’s Review

Max (Jamie Foxx) is a Los Angeles cab driver with big dreams. Even though he makes a good living driving the cleanest cab in LA and knowing how long it will take to get to any location in the city down to the minute, he plans to open a limo service in the city of the stars that will be so grand, passengers will never want to leave the car. A charming wrinkle in his plans develops when he meets an attractive, hard working US Attorney (Jada Pinkett Smith) who’s preparing for a big case. When he picks up an intense, well dressed passenger named Vincent (Tom Cruise), he suddenly finds himself in the midst of a ride for his life. Vincent’s night long game of cat and mouse with Max is the heart of “Collateral,” the new thriller from Michael Mann, the creator of “Miami Vice” and the director of such films as “Thief” and “Heat.”
Vincent’s a professional killer and he’s in Los Angeles for a single night. His job is to wipe out five people tied to a major narcotics gang. He chooses Max to take him from location to location while doing his deadly work. An unplanned mis-step makes Max an unwilling witness to the first hit and Vincent forces him to become a reluctant “partner” in his activities for the night. As they travel about the city, the two get a glimpse into each other’s lives. As Max tries to find a way out, the police and federal agents, thinking they know what’s going on, try to close in before Vincent completes his task.
Mann’s greatest skill as a director has been his ability to create and sustain a certain look and mood in his movies and he does another fine job in “Collateral.” Mann’s Los Angeles at night is a city of shadowy grays, inky blacks and dark purples, illuminated by pools of sometimes harsh white light. As he portrays it, Los Angeles feels lonely and empty at night, a place where people you don’t want to meet plan deals you don’t want to know about. James Newton Howard’s musical score, relying heavily on blues and jazz, underscores the feeling of danger in the air.
Though it gets off to a strong start as it introduces Max, Vincent and Smith’s Annie, screenwriter Stuart Beattie fails to keep up the clever, edgy tone he starts out with. Too often he seems to rely on the movie’s action scenes and the audience’s fascination with watching Cruise play a ruthless killer to get past the holes in the plot, including a laughably involved final showdown between Max, Vincent and the last person on the list.
A second major problem is Cruise’s performance. Though he invests Vincent with a tough and violent veneer, Cruise just can’t seem to bring himself to be totally despised or feared by the audience, so he undercuts Vincent’s violent behavior with an all-too-ready mega-watt, movie star smile and Zen-like asides about the nature of life. Place an Al Pacino or Robert DeNiro in this role and it takes on an extra dimension of danger. You feel as if these actors could so intimidate Foxx’s Max he wouldn’t dream of looking for help while the killer’s out of the cab. It’s hard to believe that kind of menace coming from good ol’ Tom.
Despite being well stocked with strong supporting performers, such as Mark Ruffalo, Peter Berg and Irma P. Hall (another Mann strength), “Collateral” too often veers off the clear path to quality thrillerdom it starts out on and ends up in the boondocks on unfulfilled potential. In other words, this was a contender that looked good in the early rounds, but went down swinging at shadows.