12) Collateral

Collateral (2004)

Director: Michael Mann

Starring: Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith, Mark Ruffalo, Javier Bardem


Part two of Channel 7's Sunday night movie double was Michael Mann's Collateral. I'd seen this movie a couple of times before and have loved it and was actually thinking of watching it again (I'd recently lent the DVD to my brother which jogged my memory).

Jamie Foxx plays LA taxi driver Max, who one night unsuspectingly picks up hired killer Vincent (Tom Cruise) who offers him $600 to be his driver for the night. When Max soon discovers the true purpose of the visits Vincent is making he finds himself not just a chauffeur but also a hostage and unwitting accomplice. When Max discovers that the last name on Vincent's hit list is attorney Annie (Jada Pinkett-Smith), a passenger from earlier in the evening who Max established an instant repore with, he has to work out a way of stopping Vincent.

This is a brilliant premise for a thriller. Mann has a thing for thrillers based around two central characters circling each other (Pacino/De Niro in Heat, Pacino/Crowe in The Insider, Depp/Bale in Public Enemies), and this time he has managed to get them in uncomfortably close proximity to each other, in the same car. Collateral is what I like to call a 'situation based thriller' (I don't know if a real term exists for what I'm about to explain but I think 'situation based thriller works). Unlike most thrillers where the interest and the suspense comes from the unravelling of an intricate plot which takes place over an extended period of time, complete with unseen twists and turns, in this case the interest comes solely from the immediate situation the two characters find themselves in. Collateral is more about the 'what' than the 'why'. For the majority of the film the viewer is not asking themselves why Vincent is killing these people, his motivation is irrelevant. Rather the suspense comes from how Max is going to deal with his immediate situation, finding himself the unwitting accomplice to a series of murders. Other 'situation based thrillers' I can think of off the top of my head are Joel Schumacher's Phone Booth (how is Colin Farrell going to get out of the phone booth without getting shot?) and Jan de Bont's Speed (how is Keanu Reeves going to get everyone off the bus without it blowing up?), but of the three examples Collateral is definitely the most sophisticated scenario.

Collateral came in the real golden year for Jamie Foxx, with his Best Supporting Actor nomination for this film being trumped by his Best Actor win for Ray, but it is Cruise's performance which interested me more. The decision to cast Tom Cruise as the hit-man Vincent was a great piece of against-type casting. The fact that audiences are so used to seeing Cruise play heroic roles brings all the more shock value to his merciless killings in Collateral. The best piece of against-type casting I can think of was Denzel Washington in Training Day for which he won the Best Actor Oscar. Playing a corrupt policeman, because it was Denzel Washington the audiences were just waiting for him to turn good and redeem himself (much like he does in the somewhat disappointing end to American Gangster) but he never does.

Collateral is a sharp, suspenseful thriller and generally a fantastic film. It is among Michael Mann's best films, alongside Heat and The Insider, and a case could be made for it sitting at the top of the pile.