COLLATERAL

Director: Michael Mann (The Insider, Ali, long career in production, writing, direction)
Starring: Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith

Occasionally okay, rarely) the Hollywood studios will send out a surprising little action film, or drama tucked in among their big-budget over-marketed event movies. This is one of those surprising movies. Most surprising of all is that it starred Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx and yet was still tastefully marketed the masses. In fact, I saw very little advertising for this film at all. After seeing it, I know why: It was a silly action movie that was done extraordinarily well where Tom Cruise is a bad guy. That's not how you market a star, so market it they didn't. Jamie Foxx is a cab driver, Tom Cruise is a killer. And while the killer forces the cabby to drive him around as he kills people, it's amazing this doesn't turn into a buddy picture ... No, I'm surprised to say that Tom Cruise is a very effective cold blooded killer, and even more surprised to say that Jamie Foxx is a real goddamn actor. These are two excellent performances. The direction was fine enough, but now to the bad part: The film broke during my screening, so I don't know how it ended. That should temper this review, no? Well, what I saw was really quite good. A- After finally seeing the ending on video, I can see that the film as a whole was not quite as good as I had hoped. What was an absolutely excellent film up until the "climax", but became only quite good after the silly shoot em up ending. Dammit. Still, I highly respect most of the movie.

Standouts: Astounding visuals and acting. LA at night ... gorgeous.
Blowouts: Bad shoot-em-up Hollywood ending.

Grade: A-