Foxx and Cruise
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LOVEFiLM Review
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By Tom Charity from LOVEFiLMTaking place over a single 24 hour period, the worlds of taxi driver Max Durocher (Jamie Foxx) and hitman Vincent (Tom Cruise) collide when Max is coerced into chauffeuring Vincent to six planned killings. The plucky cabbie won't comply that easily, however...
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Most helpful review
Dazzling thriller from Michael Mann
By Philip Concannon from London , 19 Sep 2004[Highly rated reviewer]
After dallying with real-life dramas in the excellent 'The Insider' and the flawed but impressive 'Ali', Michael Mann is back doing what he does best here with this absorbing crime thriller.
Max(Jamie Foxx) has been driving a cab for twelve years, while he makes plans for the limo company he hopes to own one day. This night has been going pretty well so far, Max has even scored a date with one of his fares(Jada Pinkett-Smith), but the night is about to take a turn for the worse. Max's next customer is Vincent(Tom Cruise), a contract killer who forces Max to be his driver throughout the night while he makes his five hits.
Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx are outstanding as the odd couple in Foxx's cab, they've got an natural chemistry and the sequences between them are alternately tense and amusing. Cruise is especially superb as the emotionless killer, he's always had a clinical coldness that has only been properly capitalised on in 'Magnolia', his best part to date.
As always with Michael Mann's films, there's a well-chosen supporting cast. Mark Ruffalo is excellent as the cop on Vincent's trail and it's there's a nice cameo from Javier Bardem, it's always good to see Bruce McGill make an appearance too.
However, the real star of this film is Mann himself. He orchestrates the action with a master's touch, nobody does a set-piece like he does. Nobody shoots LA like he does either, and the use of high-definition digital cameras pays off with some stunning shots. I especially loved the scene where Max can see Vincent on one floor of an office block and his prey on another.
There's a shoot-out in a nightclub that's first class and a wonderful scene in a jazz club that seems to be just a strange sidetrack, until you see where the scene is heading.
Maybe the film does slip into thriller conventions in the final third, but it still towers over most recent efforts in the genre. 'Collateral' is thrilling, funny, stylish and adult stuff for almost all of it's running time and offers plenty of twists and surprises. You won't see many more exciting thrillers than this, when it comes to crime on the streets of LA, Michael Mann is in a league of his own- Was this review helpful to you?
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All reviews
(826)Good recipe
By gianino (621 reviews) from London , 28 Apr 2013If you throw in a pan Michael Mann, Tom Cruise, Jame Foxx and a good plot you get an exiting movie out of it. Original, exiting and fast pace thriller with some amazing acting and a brilliant director- Was this review helpful to you?
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Unfortunately - Disappointing.
By Richie77777 (251 reviews) from Essex , 10 Mar 2013My favourite Michael Mann film is, 'Heat,' and, 'Collateral,' simply put is not a patch on, 'Heat'. Perhaps they shouldn't even be compared? - But I'm going to, because I'm the one writing this review! I think there's moments where Cruise's character comes out with some interesting lines, but unlike Neil in, 'Heat,' its hard to actually like him as a character! I won't give away what happens, but as in many films, the last 20 to 25 minutes, the pace really picks up and the film actually becomes watchable! Up until that point, it just doesn't work for me. As I thought the film comes full circle, which I predicted, but I won't ever watch it again!- Was this review helpful to you?
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Original, Engaging and Exciting
By JayLow (122 reviews) , 23 Sep 2012Michael Mann knows how to make a thriller and Collateral is one of his best. It's original, engaging, taught and, most importantly, exciting.
The premise is great - a regular-Joe taxi driver is duped into ferrying around a hitman on a particulalry busy killing-spree across LA. And unlike so many 'good idea' films, Mann knows how to handle his subject and get the most out of it.
The top notch acting helps. As the everyman hero Jamie Foxx is a standout and the support cast is great. Also, Tom Cruise, sporting silver coiffure and a silver suit, really does cut it as the cold blooded killer...
Well, he cuts it until the last quarter of the film, when the whole movie decides to give credibility the rest of the evening off. Basically, Mann replaces the laws of physics by the Laws of Hollywood - he obviously figures that excitement is more important than realism in this kind of thing and, perhaps, he's right.
So, Cruise becomes that oh-so-familiar-and-kinda-boring Hollywood character, the superhuman assassin (think Bourne or everything that Bruce Willis would want to be) who can take bullets in the head, defeat a whole nightclub full of gangsters and always guesses correctly where our hero is hiding. Hmmm. People start to survive huge car crashes and convenient coincidences become inevitable plot twists...
But, the pace doesn't flag and the excitment doesn't drop. It's a damned good thriller.- Was this review helpful to you?
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Collateral Collateral
By NICKJOJO (255 reviews) from Surrey , 23 Feb 2012This was okay but something wasn't quite right and i can't put my finger on it. Entertaining, violent, tense, but not right. It's as though there's something missing in the plot,atwist or something as the whole film just peters out at the end thoroughly exhausted.- Was this review helpful to you?
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pretty bad
By a customer , 11 Sep 2011Very little in this movie worked for me.
There are some nice shots of LA at night and there is some clever cinematography where the shot looks low budget until you notice all the helicopters in the sky in the background. But the characterization, script, basic premise and the relationship between the two main people left me so bored that i had to skip chunks of the film.- Was this review helpful to you?
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