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In a year full of stale cookie cutter movies and with few real winners, it was refreshing to see such an exciting and intense thriller that goes down as easy as pie and comes off as cool as ice. Not cold, mind you, but cool, for Michael Mann's Collateral is a very stylish pic, and fairly poignant in moments, too. A real refreshing blast of fresh air this summer. Los Angeles cabbie Max (Jamie Foxx) leads a lonely life, driving around the streets all day picking up and dropping off customers, leaving himself with the unfulfilled dream of running a limousine company. He's been a cab driver for 12 years now, and he thinks there's no way that he'll ever break away from it. One night, however, he picks up a lovely lawyer named Annie (Jada Pinkett Smith), whose ride ends with the possibility of a date, adding the tiniest sliver of hope to Max's dead end life. All seems to be going exceptionally well. Enter Vincent (Tom Cruise). Vincent is a good-looking man, dressed in a cool gray suit and tie, and he's the kind of guy who can slip you five hundreds without his wallet breaking into a feverish sweat. Max drives him to his destination, and then witnesses him kill someone...needless to say, Max gets a little freaked. Vincent offers him more money to drive him around during the night as he works his way through his hit list, but when Max refuses the offer and goes to call the police, Vincent takes him captive and forces him to escort him across the seams of the seedy underbelly of nightlife in L.A. "Cool" is an adjective that's probably going to clock a lot of time in my review of Collateral. It's practically a synonym for the movie. It's easily one of the most exciting thrillers to come out this year. Michael Mann has directed Collateral with a sure hand, its digital look being anything but amateurish. In fact, it even adds to the realism of the somewhat farfetched premise. We feel as if we really are treading on the dark side of Los Angeles, and that's part of the film's success. Even though we know that a hostage situation like this is not likely to occur, it feels real; gritty and real. Mann knows how to manipulate his audience and play the senses, and not in a way that makes the audience so painfully aware that they're being manipulated. A considerable portion of the film's coolness comes from the performances of the highly talented group of actors. Jamie Foxx, who until now has mostly starred in subpar comedies, does a spectacular job here. With the upcoming Ray, there's no doubt that he's destined to become Hollywood's newest superstar. Mark Ruffalo, always a joy, maintains his reputation here as a detective named Fanning who is hot on Vincent's case, trying to persuade the cops to believe that Max is not the one responsible for the killings. He provides for a very likable character, and just about the only source of hope for our "hero." Now to Collateral's main lead. Adding a large chunk of cool to the already bursting cool factor is Tom Cruise. Cruise gives one of the best performances of his career as Vincent, being suprisingly very cold-blooded. Any fan of Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles can tell you that Cruise can play the bad guy as well as he can the intrepid hero, but here he adds on to it by being, well, cool as all get-out. However, he doesn't play the role in one dimension, as he provides a subtle depth and even likability to Vincent's character. The script also fleshes out Vincent fairly well, doing a well above average job for this kind of picture. Then again, what would you expect from a Mann film? There are many sequences of raw intensity, including one in a crowded night club that will have you just about ready to bite your nails and almost teetering off the edge of your seat. All of these sequences are brilliantly filmed, and come off cooler than anything you've seen in some time. Michael Mann has not skipped a beat in making everything in Collateral as cool as it can be, without risking character and plot. This is one of the few odysseys in cool that doesn't make you feel like you've just wasted two hours of your life. Collateral will have you pinned down breathlessly until its excellent, pulse-pounding climax. At last check, I've used the term "cool" or variations of it about ten times. Cool. (Make that eleven.) email this review to a friend
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