"It started like any other night."

Collateral (2004): 6/10

Poster (c) DreamWorks Pictures

There's nothing better than going into a movie you thought would be bad and walking out pleasantly surprised. There's nothing worse than going into a movie you expect to be great and come out with a feeling of mediocrity. The latter is how I felt about Collateral (not to be confused with the Schwarzenegger Collateral Damage), one of the movies for which I was most excited in the summer. Both of the trailers looked great, with them seeming dark and being an action film with a dramatic overtone. Instead, we get a film that has its moments, but just doesn't know what to be. Is it a drama? Is it an action movie? Is it a comedy? I don't agree with the third, but everyone in the test audience was cracking up like crazy. I doubt that that's a great sign for a movie like this.

Max (Jamie Foxx) is a cab driver stuck in a rut. He picks up a woman (Jada Pinkett Smith) in his cab, and gets her phone number. It started like any other night. Then Vincent (Tom Cruise) enters the cab and pays him off to drive around to five different locations for "real estate" deals. When a body falls onto Max's cab, however, it seems that Vincent is going around killing people, as he's a contract killer. Max then has to go along with Vincent, because it's good to have a good argument, but better to have a good argument with a gun in your hand.

I didn't know whether Collateral would be a thriller, an action, or a drama, but I was prepared for any. What I got was an uneasy combination of the three. The movie begins in a somber way-something that a good drama could have cone out of. There's a few action scenes thrown in (they're actually pretty cool-they'd be better if this was actually an action movie), and the music was so unbearable loud you'd think it was a thriller. I mean it, the music (by James Newton Howard) was so obnoxious and it played the emotions so much that it is the one factor that ruined the film for me. For example, Max calls Annie (Smith) on a cell phone, and I was literally about to yell out to the screen that she wouldn't be able to hear him talk because the music was so loud. What was Michael Mann thinking?

Speaking of Mann, he does a great directing job here. He chooses a unique style, which isn't always good (like Man on Fire), but here it works. He keeps only a small amount of the screen in focus by using a telephoto lens, which really emphasizes the characters, which are both well developed. The cinematography in general was very good, with quite a few helicopter shots, and the whole thing's pretty steady for what looked like to be a handheld camera. Although the quick cuts were necessary in the action scenes, they weren't overdone, which I felt thankful for. Everything technical looked very deliberate-and I can only attribute that to Mann. Although he won't be, it would be great to see him nominated for Best Director. He wasn't the one responsible for the uneven script, but he did make it constantly interesting. At times, it's interesting but unexciting, then it's interesting and exciting, then it's interesting and boring. At least it's always interesting.

Foxx, best known for his roles in stupid comedies (except 2001's Ali, also directed by Mann), really proves himself here. He puts in an outstanding acting job here, alienating himself from his previous, fluff roles. Cruise seems to be paychecking his way through, although, since he's a generally good actor, he does a good job. Although the movie overstays its two hour welcome (the ending seemed especially drawn out and clichéd (that's just not possible), Collateral is a different film, to say the least. It's a combination of genres, but, unlike, say, Donnie Darko, it doesn't work that well like that.

Rated R for violence and language.

Review Date: July 29, 2004