Collateral
2004, U.S.A., 120m
Director: Michael Mann
English
Rated R
Collateral isn’t really quite sure what kind of movie it wants to be. It might be a psychological thriller—it acts like it, I’d say, for the first two thirds of the movie. Or maybe it’s an action film—it spends most of the last third doing this. In between, we have Tom Cruise spouting off some bizarre philosophy. In general, I liked this. But I didn’t love it. Michael Mann could have made a better movie if he’d picked either psychological thriller or action and stuck with it. And, ultimately, the last 90 seconds of the movie are so bizarrely bad that it almost soured me on the whole endeavor.
The basic plot of Collateral is simple: Jamie Foxx is a cab driver who is hired for the night to drive Tom Cruise around Los Angeles. Tom Cruise is a hired assassin—which Foxx learns as the first killing goes bad.
With this premise, we’ve got the makings of an excellent thriller; Mann seems up for the job. (Though an interesting take might have been to limit the film’s setting to the cab.) The process of Foxx’s character realizing that not much separates the good guys and the bad guys, plus the tension between himself and Cruise works fantastically. Even the two-bit philosophy is good for the most part, even if laid on a little thick by the end..
But then the movie turns into a shoot-em-up action flick, and a pretty badly derivative one at that. During consecutive scenes I found it to be a pale imitation of John Woo’s work (perhaps Face/Off), Terminator, Mission: Impossible and The French Connection. Unfortunately, the movie couldn’t manage a new take on any of this; it just felt like a series of bad ripoffs.
Now, don’t get me wrong, the movie isn’t terrible; the ending is just a disappointment after the first two thirds. Don’t turn if off if it comes on TV, and don’t refuse to watch at a friend’s house. If nothing else, the continuing evolution of Jamie Foxx into a serious actor is worth taking in.
I’ll admit, though, that much of my appreciation for Heat derives from Al Pacino’s incredibly over-the-top performance, which makes the movie fun beyond belief to watch.
Collateral, of course, has no comparable performance (for better or worse—-probably better), but it accomplished something that few, if any, movies have: it made me forget that Tom Cruise was the star.
And, make no mistake, no one can do an L.A. skyline shot like Michael Mann can.
— The Inquirer 1354 days ago #
— Yuda 1354 days ago #