Collateral (2004)

Director: Michael Mann

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

Country: United States

Rating: R

Run Time: 116 minutes

Even though Michael Mann has directed dramas, horror, and historical epics, the Mann (see what I did there) is most well known for his crime dramas. Films like Thief, Manhunter, Heat, Collateral, Miami Vice, Public Enemies, and Blackhat define Mann, flaws and all. Mann is a filmmaker who humanizes cops and criminals and gets at what makes them do the things that they do. He is one of the few filmmakers who makes criminals redeemable despite their heinous crimes. 

While some may say that Thief, Manhunter, and Heat are Mann's best films, I believe that Collateral is Mann's best feature film to date because it has a perfect balance of immersive character work, bad ass action, and thrilling storytelling. Everything comes together to create one of the best neo-noir action pictures of the last decade. It's unfortunate that Mann's career post-Collateral has somewhat tanked. Bland contemporary Mann films like Miami Vice and Blackhat pale in comparison to Mann's early work.

The Transporter meets The Assassin.

Collateral was a very important film for Mann's career. It was the first film that Mann shot extensive amounts of high definition footage. Mann's post-Collateral films are defined by their high definition photography. Therefore, Collateral was where Mann's high definition obsession began. Collateral was and still is Mann's biggest financial success to date, grossing an impressive $217 million off of a $64 million budget for an R-Rated film. The film also marks the jumping off point for Mann's longest streak of crime pictures to date, a whopping four in a row over the course of 11 years. At this point, Mann should just stick to crime dramas, as that is what he typically does best. However, I hope that Mann can remember what made Collateral so great and apply that to his contemporary works.

Collateral opens at an airport as a nameless man (Jason Statham in an odd cameo) passes off a briefcase to Vincent (Tom Cruise), an assassin in town for some work. We than meet Max (Jamie Fox in an Academy Award nominated role), our reluctant hero and cab driver from Los Angeles. After Max drops off a passenger named Annie (Jada Pinkett Smith), Vincent gets into Max's cab and asks him to drive to a guy's apartment. After Vincent gets out of the cab, he asks Max to wait outside for him. However, things turn sour as a dead body lands on top of Max's cab and freaks him out. It is here where Max realizes that Vincent killed the man. When Max tries to run, Vincent pulls a gun and makes Max get back into the taxi. Max now has to drive Vincent to his next four targets for the night or be killed himself. You can bet that there is some "collateral" damage throughout the night.

Even though I am not a fan of plot driven films, Collateral has an absolutely awesome one. One can't help but place themselves in Max's shoes as they watch him court an assassin around town with no other option but death. Collateral's greatest success is that it is entirely character driven despite its simplistic and sleek plot. I would argue that Collateral has both the finest screenplay and characters of any Mann film to date.

Two different men bond over the craziest cab drive of all time.

The film's dual performances by Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx are first rate. These are truly two of the best performances of each actor's careers. I would go so far as to say this is Jamie Foxx's best performance next to his starring turns in Ray and Django Unchained. Foxx is absolutely incredible as a quiet but hesitant cab driver who dreams of owning a limousine company one day. However, he never acts on anything in his life and learns to change when he meets Vincent, an assassin for hire who pesters Max about his reluctance and accidentally motivates Max to change. Max's gradual transformation from timid bystander to active hero is incredibly believable thanks to Foxx's Oscar nominated performance, Stuart Beattie's incredible screenplay, and Mann's pitch perfect direction. Even the little details, like how Max forgets to flip the safety off of a gun the first time he fires it hammer home Foxx's owernship of the character.

On the other side of the coin is Cruise's turn as Vincent, a cold and calculated assassin with a sense of honor, righteousness, and respect. Vincent is Tom Cruise at truly his most bad ass and villainous. He kicks ass, racks up an impressive body count, and shows off his redeemable side all in one film. What makes Vincent such a great character is how Mann balances him as both a murderous villain and a likable person. Much like the lead criminal characters in Mann joints like Thief and Heat, Vincent is redeemable to an extent despite the fact that he murders people for a living. Vincent is more like a twisted conscious who sits above Max's shoulder, taking advantage of him throughout the night but also lecturing him as they go. Even though Vincent forces Max to drive him around and help him kill people, he takes the time to defend Max from his rude taxi boss over an intercom and lectures him to buy his sick mother flowers because she carried him in her womb for nine months. Little characteristics like these make Vincent a complex and likable villain who doesn't turn pure evil until the end of the film when he becomes sort of an unstoppable slasher villain.

Supporting turns by Jada Pinkett Smith as a kind taxi customer and Mark Ruffalo as a hardboiled cop help add to the film's authentic Los Angeles vibe. Even though both Smith and Ruffalo have a handful of scenes to work with, their characters are essential in furthering Max's arc. I don't want to spoil their fates, but all I can say is that Mann and screenwriter Beattie use two supposed throwaway characters as essential audience attention grabbers towards the end of the film. As I stated before, there is an odd cameo by Jason Statham of all people as a bag man. Statham had already co-starred in both Snatch and The Italian Job and frontlined The Transporter by 2004, so his cameo is truly perplexing. The most truly perplexing cameo of the entire film is a one scene inclusion of the great Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men, Skyfall) as Felix, Max's mobster boss. Upon rewatching the film for my review, I was completely taken aback by Bardem's appearance, as I had not remembered him being in the film at all.

Trademark Michael Mann precision shooting.

Collateral is a nail biter of a neo-noir actioner with some incredibly bad ass action sequences and truly tense moments that will have you on the edge of your seat. The infamous "Yo homie, that my briefcase," scene in which Tom Cruise guns down two thugs in 1.39 seconds makes the entire film worth watching solely for its inclusion. Michael Mann films are notable for their precision shooting and incredibly realistic gun play. Mann is infamous for taking his actors to shooting ranges and having them rehearse their action scenes with live ammunition. That way, each actor knows the action sequence by heart and looks like they truly know what they are doing when they fire a gun. You can't get more realistic than that. 

The Club Fever sequence marks the action climax of the film in which every character converges on one location for an action packed shootout that showcases Tom Cruise at the top of his precision shooting game. Watching Cruise fall to the ground, roll, grab a gun, fire it while laying down, and than quickly make his way up from one knee, to both of his feet while still firing is breathtaking. For all of the Cruise haters out there, all I can say to them is that Cruise is one of the hardest working actors today because he immerses himself into his work simply for our entertainment. Collateral is a good action film to show to picky cinematic viewers who complain about the lack of realism in an action film whenever a character fires a gun 30 times before reloading or jumps through air and miraculously connects their bullets with a target. Collateral is about as realistic as an action film can get and that is all thanks to Mann's attention to detail and Cruise's devotion to the art of action.

Max Mann's up.

Collateral is a near perfect action thriller. The character work by Foxx and Cruise is unforgettable. By the time you reach the film's inevitable final confrontation between the two characters, you truly feel saddened at the outcome. Seeing Foxx and Cruise sit apart from each other, guns in hand, on a subway train makes for one of the best endings to any Michael Mann film to date (don't worry, I didn't spoil anything for you about the finale). Collateral is the Michael Mann film to beat. Heat may have the more epic storyline and better action, Thief may have the greater score, and Manhunter may be the most influential police procedural film to date, but Collateral trumps them all in my opinion. I'll take a tense and realistic trump through Los Angeles set over the course of one night in which Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise have deep conversations with one another any day over the likes of Heat or Manhunter. I highly recommend Collateral to all action fans and consider it to be a defining film of the digital generation of filmmaking. It defines the Los Angeles noir film for the modern age.

Rating: 9/10 - Superb action, stellar character work, and great L.A. photography make Collateral one of the best action films (and films in general) of the early 2000s.