Collateral (2004)

Director: Michael Mann

Cast: Tom Cruise as Vincent, Jamie Foxx as Max, Jada Pinkett Smith as Annie, Mark Ruffalo as Fanning, Peter Berg as Richard Weidner, Bruce McGill as Pedrosa, Irma P. Hall as Ida, Barry Shabaka Henley as Daniel, Richard T. Jones as Traffic Cop #1, Klea Scott as Fed #1, Bodhi Elfman as Young Professional Man, Debi Mazar as Young Professional Woman, Javier Bardem as Felix, Emilio Rivera as Paco, Jamie McBride as Traffic Cop #2

Collateral is a masterpiece of American cinema. Jamie Foxx is Max, a
Los Angeles cab driver with dreams of his own limo company, "Island
Limo". After twelve years on the job he has become quite gifted at
discerning the most intimate details of his passengers' lives... just a
glance at their clothes, and he knows.

His worldly insight manages to tear down the defenses of one of his
passengers, a State Attorney played by Jada Pinkett Smith, who graces
him with her phone number. Max hasn't even begun to revel in the
pleasure of possessing the beautiful attorney's digits when he gets his
next passenger, Tom Cruise as Vincent, a slick hit-man in town for a
night of killing.

When a body drops out of a fourth story window and onto Max's cab, he
becomes an unwilling partner on Vincent's murder spree. Director
Michael Mann (The Insider, Ali) does a masterful job manipulating
texture and tone throughout the movie, taking us to settings as diverse
as a junkie's apartment, a penthouse, a hospital room, and a smoky jazz
club, all the while making the city of angels a central character in
the story.

The soundtrack is also excellent, with a mixture of popular music and
ambient tracks perfectly-timed and synced to the story... tribal
drumbeats during the chase scenes, haunting rock ballads at pivotal
moments, and one track that reminded this viewer of the scene at the
other end of Tom Cruise's career, when he drives his father's Porsche
out of the garage in "Risky Business" to the accompaniment of a
thumping synth track. A bizarre side-note, I know.

As the movie builds to a climax, the police are hunting for Max,
believing he is the one on a killing spree, and Vincent stalks his
final victim in a blacked-out high-rise office to a backdrop of the
brilliant LA skyline, reflected in multiplicity by the office's dozens
of glass cubicles.

Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, and Jada Pinkett Smith all rise to the occasion
in Collateral, and together they transcend their previous appearances
on film. Mark Ruffalo gives a good performance as the cop who knows
everything is not what it seems.

There are a few minor plot points which didn't sufficiently suspend my
disbelief (like when Max agrees to take Vincent the vicious hit-man to
see his Mother in the hospital), but overall this is a fantastic movie.

Troy Dayton