Rent Collateral (2004)

Excellent! - Collateral review by CP Customer

Excellent film, brilliant cast. Well worth watching.

Beware of the man in the grey suit. - Collateral review by CP Customer

Wow, from start to finish the film won`t let you look away, Tense, scary and very good. Poor Max with his fare from hell, while vincent is cool, calm & calculated. Enjoy.

OK but ........ - Collateral review by CP Customer

....... it may have been me but why do American actors mumble so much, so much so that you couldn't always tell what they were saying even when you rewound the film and listened again!

And why is the music so loud and talking so quiet. Turn the volume up, turn the volume down etc. Perhaps I'm just getting old ;-)

Quiet but good - Collateral review by CP Customer

Very quiet and slow but watchable (only once)!!

Cruise Hits All The Right Notes In This Jazz Infused Blockbuster - Collateral review by CP Customer

Take a cab ride with Max. Garrulous in good company, yet discreet, he's self-effacing, compassionate, intuitive and adaptable.

Silver-haired and silver-suited Vincent's visibly focussed, driven, sharp and articulate. Yet look more closely and you might notice something slightly different about him. Spitting out words laced with venom and acting in a fashion that only a man in total control can, he's not the average businessman that you might have initially mistaken him for.

Director Michael Mann allows us quality time with his characters in what is an intentionally unhurried and sensual opening sequence. And they're characters that writer Stuart Beattie has successfully painted in full colour.

Mann's pacing, of what is a 120-minute film, is superb. Never getting bogged down in unnecessary back-story the sense of tension, which is well maintained throughout, constantly builds with the growing momentum. It's also to the veteran director's credit that he doesn't allow any sense of Hollywood-movie-contrivance to creep in.

The cinematography is awesome too. The City of Angels, shrouded in night brought to life by vibrant neon-technicolour, looks fantastic. James Newton Howard's score is also particularly effective.

Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx both produce bravura performances. Cruise as comfortable with darkly comic scenes as with the nuances of a remorseless killer. Foxx, meanwhile, expertly emphasising Max's personal and emotional arc.

Michael Mann's films continue to be a real draw. Just like a good jazz player he improvises, plays unexpected off-notes and keeps his audience guessing.

Collateral is one of his finest.

Tom Cruise plays a baddy ! - Collateral review by RP

I must confess that Tom Cruise isn't one of my favourite actors. The roles he chooses are often too goody-goody, too good looking, too straight - yet here he plays a baddy, so that's a change for the better. He's also quite a 'wooden' actor - he always seems to play Tom Cruise [Aside: Even in the v. poor 'Valkyrie', he played Tom Cruise playing a too-good Nazi - but perhaps he picked himself for the lead role in that film because he owns the film studio...]

Michael Mann is a director whose work I like - one of his films, 'Manhunter', is a favourite of mine - and he always seems to get the best out of the actors, even getting some of the more 'wooden' ones to act, for example Russell Crowe in 'The Insider'.

And here, although Tom Cruise is still somewhat on the wooden side, the director not only gets him to act a little, but gets him to give an effective performance as a deadpan, sociopathic contract killer. I like it - seems to fit Mr Cruise quite well :)

Max (Jamie Foxx) is a cab driver. Max is a self-deluding dreamer, drifting along, with big plans but lacking the motivation to put them into action. At the start of the film an attractive woman lawyer gets into Max's cab and after some banter gives Max her card. So it's obvious that she's going to reappear at the end. The Max picks up smoothy but baddy Vincent (Tom Cruise) who hires the unsuspecting Max for the evening to drive him around while he makes five hits, one of whom (of course) just happens to be the attractive lawyer. In the process Vincent manages to motivate Max just enough so that the goodies win and the baddy (of course) perishes.

It's all a bit predictable, but the film is stylish and well directed - and I did quite like the idea of Mr Cruise being a baddy. I enjoyed it and it's above average so I'll give it 4/5 stars, but that does seem a bit on the high side...

[Aside: Look out for a brief cameo appearance by Jason Statham as the airport bagman at the very beginning]

TopNotch Crime Thriller - Collateral review by GI

Director Michael Mann has a unique style, instantly recognisable and much envied and copied by others. His genius is his depiction of cityscapes especially at night combining sharp angled close ups with wide shots of the city. In this case it's Los Angeles where he creates a story of two men, on opposite sides of a moral divide, a theme Mann has often been attracted to in his other films. The story is set over one busy night in LA where Max (Jamie Foxx), a night shift taxi driver with ambitious dreams, drops off City prosecutor Annie (Jada Pinkett Smith) at her office where she's preparing a big case and picks up Vincent (Tom Cruise) who has five locations he needs to visit in one night and offers Max a big tip if he ferries him around. Max reluctantly agrees but soon regrets his decision because Vincent is a highly professional contract killer with five 'hits' to carry out and Max realises he's not going to survive the night. But circumstances forces Vincent to have to use Max and the two begin to develop a strange rapport. Cruise is excellent here and proves he's an actor far better than often thought and I certainly wish he'd make more films like this rather than big, brash action films. Coldly professional but hinting at an emotional past that sees him make decisions around Max that are ultimately to his detriment. The action is fast, realistic and gritty with a superb complimentary soundtrack throughout the film. The support cast includes Mark Ruffalo as a detective on the trail and Javier Bardem has a great cameo. You will not find a modern crime thriller as brilliant as this. It's sharp, original and directed with a style that utilises digital techniques that enhance the story and the setting. It's really a mini masterpiece.