Collateral

Release Date: August 6, 2004
Studio: DreamWorks Pictures
Director: Michael Mann
Screenwriter: Stuart Beattie, Frank Darabont, Michael Mann
Starring: Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith, Mark Ruffalo, Peter Berg, Bruce McGill, Dennis Farina, Irma Hall, Javier Bardem, Bodhi Elfman
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller
MPAA Rating: R (for violence and language)
Official Website: Collateral-themovie.com

Plot Summary: Max (Foxx) has lived the mundane life of a cab driver for 12 years. The faces have come and gone from his rearview mirror, people and places he's long since forgotten...until tonight. Vincent (Cruise) is a contract killer. When an offshore narcotrafficking cartel learns they're about to be indicted by a federal grand jury, they mount an operation to identify and kill the key witnesses, and the last stage is tonight. Tonight, Vincent arrived in L.A...and five bodies are supposed to fall. Circumstances cause Vincent to hijack Max's taxicab, and Max becomes collateral-an expendable person in the wrong place at the wrong time. Through the night Vincent forces Max to drive him to each assigned destination. And as the LAPD and FBI race to intercept them, Max and Vincent's survival becomes dependent on each other in ways neither would have imagined.

Review by Peter Veugelaers © 2004
- Who said they don't make 'em like they used to?

 A New Zealand actor working in Hollywood once said that it was a lonely town for an outsider to work in. And apparently so for insiders. Vincent (Tom Cruise) is such a man, an outsider on a night of a killing spree in West Hollywood, a hit job he takes as business-as-usual. When Vincent uses the services of a cab – a rather strange choice for a hitman – he tells the driver, Max (Jamie Foxx) that “people don’t know each other here”. They’re users and people are conveniences. It recalls Oscar Levant’s comments on the culture: “Strip away the phoney tinsel of Hollywood and you find the real tinsel underneath”....more

Review by John Barker © 2004
- Better than a cheese royale: buy one while its hot

 Those glistening white teeth, that unmistakable debonair smile, and the gleaming pennant to elevate even the hookiest Hollywood movie to blockbuster status, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the lovable Tom Cruise.

 The golden boy of Hollywood’s latest role sees him retreat into the darker recesses of his on-screen persona as aggressive assassin Vincent, in Michael Mann’s newest crime opus. Although the viewing audience may simply negate the film to the level of pure B-movie fodder, as the plot resembles a mixture of Speed’s chase mentality and Lethal Weapon’s odd-couple mechanics. The ethnically diverse duo of Vincent and Max (Jamie Foxx) are a far removed from the usual buddy movie pairings. Max is the optimistic dreamer, the classic rags-to-riches character, who hopes some day to own a luxury limousine company, whilst Vincent is the pragmatic, mature and nihilistic passenger from the underbelly of urban America.