Review
Collateral
- Director
- Michael Mann
- Year
- 2004
- Rating
- Reviewed by
- Jorge Castillo a.k.a. Mithrandir
- Review date
- Tuesday, August 24, 2004
1a: accompanying as a secondary fact, but subordinate to a main consideration
b: not directly relevant, or material
Max (Jamie Foxx) is your regular cab driver, except that he’s been on the job for well over 12 years. There’s certain monotony to his job… until tonight. Vincent (Tom Cruise) is a contract killer. He has been hired, in this case, to eliminate the key witnesses (as well as the main prosecutor) in the case against a narco-trafficking cartel that conducts business on and off-shore. The way that things were originally planned, Max was to drive Vincent around to five different places and wait for him, since he had some businesses to take care of. The only problem with that though, is that the first person that Vincent goes to assassinate drops from a balcony, directly into Max’s cab. The fact that it was Vincent who shot and murdered the man arises into Max’s mind very quickly, and when he confronts him about it, Vincent points his gun to Max’s face, and tells him to get into the cab. He’s still driving him to the other four places.
This has got to be one of the best movies I have seen all year, and probably one of the best movies I’ve seen in a while. Let me explain why:
The fact that I was caught completely off-guard as to what was going to develop in the movie may be a beneficial factor to this movie’s awesomeness. The movie begins with Jamie Foxx getting his Taxi ready to go out on the job, all calm; we see him boarding people, driving them around, listening to their mindless chatter. Then we meet Vincent, who’s got nothing much going for him either, as far as originality goes. He’s the same type of person we’ve seen boarding before on his cab. Then Max delivers Vincent to his first address, and while Vincent goes into the building, Max begins to unpack a sandwich. He proceeds to unwrap it, and starts eating it, slowly. What happens then is what caught me too much off guard: a body drops straight into the taxi. There’s no warning, no camera from the top following a fight between Vincent and the other man, no aerial shot either. It’s just Max eating his sandwich, pleasant, peaceful music playing in the background, and then BANG: a body falls, breaks the glass, and splatters blood all over the place. Just for that, for its ability to catch me off-guard so easily, I have got to give major acknowledgement to this movie’s editing and production team. Not even with the introduction prior to Dawn of the Dead (2004) was I caught so off guard. Pardon my blatant discussion about this specific topic, but these types of things don’t happen to me very often. It’s one of those “special moments” that needs to be told.
As far as acting is concerned, the cast could not have been better chosen. Now, I know I usually say that the cast was perfect for the movie most of the time (except in very few cases, i.e. King Arthur (2004)), but this one was truly perfect. Jamie Foxx played his character with such an ease, that he seemed natural at what he was doing. Everything from his way of talking to the cabbies, to showing his non-timid side when under pressure… the man was awesome. I’ve never regarded him as an actor of much caliber, but after his performance here, as well as in Ray (2004), I can only say that he delivers when he’s supposed to, and he does it in a big way. To top my compliments to him, I can honestly say that his performance was as good as the big man himself in Taxi Driver… and that’s saying something. Tom Cruise was the perfect evil guy. He’s perfect in almost every movie he does, without a doubt, so I’m sure he was just reprising one of his evil roles from another movie, but in this one, he was truly magnificent. He was cold-blooded, thoughtful, philosophical, insightful, careful… everything an evil murderous guy should be. Then there’s the female character, Jada Pinkett Smith, who plays her role as the scared lawyer perfectly. I have often wondered about the versatility of the characters she plays. She went from machine-juggling, amazing Zion-ite in The Matrix trilogy, to a lawyer who is scared of what her future might hold if she does not win the big case she’s working on. It may not seem like much, but it takes range to be able to take on these roles and fill them in as if they were yours. She does that. When scripting a movie such as this, where violence and suspense seems to be the main driving forces, one wonders how the writers managed to include so much of the character’s backgrounds into the movie. That’s what makes this movie so amazing: It gives the viewer just a bit more than what it’s waiting to receive.
The score was also very well done. It blended everything from Rock to Latin songs, and it played off wonderfully against the scenes happening in the movie. James Newton Howard did a great job setting up the score and the main music behind the film, so all credit goes to him. Although I know him mostly from scoring films directed by M. Night Shyamalan, he holds his ground on this movie, which is a very good thing to say about a composer.
The photography was great. So was the editing. The writing department deserves major props for delivering such an amazing film. I seriously cannot compliment this movie enough.
“What? I should only kill people after I get to know them?”
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Review
Collateral
- Director
- Michael Mann
- Year
- 2004
- Rating
- Reviewed by
- José Ruiloba a.k.a. Morris
- Review date
- Monday, August 30, 2004
During a fairly common L.A. night in which he has just picked up and flirted a little with a beautiful attorney (Jada Pinkett Smith), taxi driver Max (Jamie Foxx) finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time as a man named Vincent (Tom Cruise) chooses him to take him to five different spots just before he flies away from the city in the morning. Thing is, Vincent is a sociopath killer hired by a drug lord (Javier Bardem) to kill five people. The situation gets even uglier once the LAPD and the FBI go after him, led by Detective Fanning (Mark Ruffalo).
Collateral is not a pretentious movie nor is it a profound or life-changing one. Matter of fact, it is a high-concept thriller boasted by two wonderful performances and a central relationship that keeps it afloat. It’s the kind of movie Mann does to perfection.
Entertainment-wise, the movie works incredibly well. We never know what’s going to happen next or what’s around the corner. We don’t take the characters for granted and the suspense level is always consistent, reaching high-pitch levels toward the nail-biting climactic final sequence. But that’s not to say it’s perfectly written. It is the kind of movie that doesn’t stand up that well after it’s over. Plot holes abound, and a continuous sense of disbelief is necessary to enjoy the experience as a whole. Characters do some plot-driven unbelievable things at times (dropping that case?) and situations don’t always seem logical (that shoot-out?). But the movie is so well put-together that those are only minor quibbles.
Another minor quibble I found: Mann’s sudden obsession with close-ups. Sure, shooting the movie like that gives it a claustrophobic atmosphere, but I saw the movie in a theater and after a while it started to get tiring watching Cruise’s and Foxx’s giant faces up there in the screen. Then again, Mann’s direction is superb most of the time, giving the movie a stylish look that fits perfectly with the story. He used digital cameras for most of the shooting and it shows. L.A. has rarely looked so real in a movie. You can almost smell the city…
It also helps that Cruise and Foxx deliver excellent performances. Both are cast against-type and both are up to the task. Their relationship is the central theme in the movie. Cruise’s character is a philosophical jazz-loving lad with not one trace of humanity. Foxx’s character, on the other hand, is all about dreams and illusions, so meeting Vincent proves to be a catalyst to finally stand up to others and to himself, and place himself right in the middle of the real world. In a nutshell, Foxx had a big task in making this character credible, and he is just superb.
A solid, first-rate thriller…
“No, I shot him. The bullets and the fall killed him.”
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Review
Collateral
- Director
- Michael Mann
- Year
- 2004
- Rating
- Reviewed by
- Gon Curiel a.k.a. Groucho
- Review date
- Thursday, January 20, 2005
The story has Max (Jamie Foxx), an L.A. taxi driver, driving around town, doing his job. He’s the main character for all we care, as the story introduces him at first, and centers on him mostly, even though soon another character will take first chair, but always through Max. A couple of seemingly irrelevant rides are presented at first, one of which turns out interesting when the passenger, an attractive, smart district attorney (Jada Pinkett Smith), befriends Max, and shares with him a profound conversation, after which she gives him her card. Right after that, Max picks up another passenger: Vincent (Tom Cruise), a wise-cracking visitor in town, who’s there to close a one-night deal, and wishes to hire Max as his personal driver for the next few hours. Max is reluctant at first, but $600 do the job. Soon, however, it turns out Vincent’s agenda is far more serious than Max expected: He’s in town to kill five people. Unable to escape from Vincent’s clutches, Max finds himself talking to the man, philosophizing about life, and coping with his own crude reality.
There were many things from the get-go that jumped to my eyes like the most implausible elements imaginable in a situation like this. However, pretty soon afterwards (every time), I was fascinated by the relationship between Vincent and Max, and intrigued by what was going on. The film kept me wondering what was going to happen next, and how a story like this could end without falling towards cliché, but satisfying at the same time. The whole process was the same: choking with implausibility, but full of valuable elements, and a true sense of excitement and anguish, as only a good thriller can manage. The final sequence, which involves another character, is certainly on the cliché territory, but there was no other way to finish a story like this, and I loved Mann for pulling it off successfully anyhow.
Aside from Cruise and Foxx, few performers astound, as a result of the little time the script grants them. It’s good because the claustrophobic effect Mann gives us in increasing doses works better when we focus mostly on the taxi, but I couldn’t get enough of Mark Ruffalo as a detective, and certainly Jada Pinkett Smith in her own juicy role. Other short performances with great flavor are provided by Javier Bardem as Vincent’s employer and Irma P. Hall as Max’s mother, who freshens up the film right on time.
The character development is strong on Max’s side, and inexistent on Vincent’s. Vincent is a psychopath, blinded by his conviction, and secure enough to philosophize about life from his point of view without a doubt that he’s absolutely right. Max is full of insecurities, frustrations, and unaccomplished dreams, and the experience with Vincent changes him for good. Foxx is amazing as Max, both as a frightened cab driver and as a courageous everyman hero. Scenes where he borrows lines and attitudes from Vincent are hilarious, but mostly the result of his actions is poignant, and that, along with Mann’s visual style (accompanied brilliantly by a low-key James Newton Howard score), are the most valuable aspects of the film.
To wrap up, I’ll go back to Cruise. It’s great to see him back in form in a film unpretentious enough to not focus on making his character the main attraction whatever it takes. Cruise manages to portray a cool, believable villain, and scenes like the nightclub killing and the subway chase are tense and exhilarating mostly on his account. The jazz-loving, existential-speaking Vincent is a superficial but memorable character, with good lines and fine moments, and I’m glad Cruise did it so well.
“No, I shot him. The bullets and the fall killed him.”
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