Collateral

Directed by: Michael Mann
Starring: Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith and Mark Ruffalo

You know, over the years I’ve heard a lot of the “fanboy” types talk a lot of trash about Tom Cruise. I remember vividly when Tom Cruise was cast as Le Stat for “Interview with the Vampire” there was a huge uproar from certain groups of people. As a matter of fact, if I remember correctly Anne Rice threatened to boycott the film over it. But of course later she came to love Cruise and praised his performance once it was all said and done. Personally, one of my all time favorite movies is “Legend” so I have seen exactly how versatile Mr. Cruise can be and generally look forward to all of his films.

On the other side of that, I don’t know anyone that just outright dislikes Jamie Foxx. He may not be everyone’s favorite actor in the world (though “Ray” should convert those last few stragglers) I don’t know of anyone who can’t stand him.

So, that brings us to “Collateral.” I knew I was going to like this movie as soon as I saw the first trailer for it. If for no other reasons than Cruise was playing a bad guy and Foxx was playing a plain, almost boring guy. Both of these roles were basically way outside the norm for these two killer actors and I couldn’t wait to see how they sank their teeth into the parts.

The first thing about the film that really caught my attention was it’s gritty look. I really liked this as I felt that it added a feeling of realism that can’t always be achieved in an uber-polished film. “Collateral” almost felt like an episode of HBO’s “Taxi-Cab Confessions” gone horribly wrong.

OK, the story begins with Max(Foxx) getting into his cab preparing for a nice night at work. He picks up an attractive lawyer named, Annie(Smith) and basically charms her into to offering him her #. We get a sense during the conversation that Max is just a nice, genuine guy that everybody can like. Well, Max drops Annie off downtown and as she gets out Vincent(Cruise) gets into his cab. He tells Max that he has five stops to make and will give Max $600 dollars to drive him around all night and another $100 if Max gets him back to the airport in time for his plane. Max agrees and while waiting for Vincent to return from his first stop, a dead body falls on his cab…the plot thickens. It seems that Vincent was the reason the body fell on the cab though he didn’t intend for the body to actually hit the cab. From this point on Max tries to get away from Vincent and tries to not get dead at the same time.

This is a solid film all the way through with a good tense ending that will have everyone on the edge of their seat afraid to breathe. If you like Cruise and Foxx, and seriously who doesn’t, then you would be doing yourself an injustice to not own this film.


- Mike

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