Disappointing

Rating: Null/10 (10 September 2004)

Collateral, despite the praise lavished by many, is a well acted, but very mediocre thriller. Spoilers contained within.
It opens up with an outstanding scene between Jamie Foxx and Jada Pinkett Smith that is well written, well thought out and takes it's time developing.
Smith, in particular, pauses and chooses her words carefully as a woman would in a real situation like this. It's not the typical "meet cute" where the conversation's outcome is never in doubt.
Then, Cruise gets into Foxx's cab and pays him $600 for the night to drive him around to the five assassinations he has to complete. I really appreciate(d) the idea behind Collateral, the developing relationship between Max and Vincent. I thought Cruise was pretty good as Vincent throughout, and Foxx was really good as Max throughout. Mann's direction lends a lot to insight, with closeups and distorted and unusual viewpoints used throughout. Finally, I like the idea of a hit man having a cabbie drive him from hit to hit. So what's my problem with Collateral? Two things, both pretty big in my opinion, that I would probably dismiss in a lesser thriller, but that I won't forgive in one that's trying to rise above it's genre.
First, and maybe Tarantino has molded or distorted my idea of what a
professional killer should be, but Vincent is not much of a professional. Yeah, he's terrific with a gun and sure, he's obviously got some kind of specialized hand to hand combat training, but he just doesn't have it emotionally. Pretty much by definition, you can't be a "professional" killer (who's obviously highly paid) and avoid being whacked yourself or captured by authorities without being careful to a fault and never becoming emotionally involved in any way. The problem with the script in Collateral is that it picks and chooses the moments where Vincent exhibits these characteristics and the moments when he doesn't. He never seems to care if anyone is watching his actions or has seen him commit murder. He wears no disguise and makes no attempt to conceal his actions. He's not really in a hurry to escape from crime scenes. He's not concerned with the potential complications involved with killing people on public streets. Sometimes he trusts Max to do what he tells him to do, and sometimes he doesn't. The sum parts of this character just don't fit the equation. And I'm not talking about the various psychological elements of Vincent that the film tries to explore, like his warped view of life or his childhood. I'm talking about the rigorous demands of being a professional killer. I just didn't buy it in the end.
The second big problem I had was the subplot involving the various detectives trying to, and then piecing together the reason behind all the killing they're encountering this particular night. The following is not something you could say until you saw the film until the end, but this particular subplot affects the main plot in ABSOLUTELY NO WAY. While interesting to a degree and providing more interesting characters, the detectives (except for one brief moment) make no encounter with the two leads and don't affect their actions at all. This is something that bothered me more and more as I thought about it. They may as well have instead had a subplot involving the man who hired Vincent to do the killings, or a subplot involving the jazz club owner. It wouldn't have made a difference. While interesting, the subplot in this case adds nothing to the big picture except making the film's main story go from credible to implausible.
I'm referring, of course, to the shootout at the nightclub involving the fourth hit. Both Vincent and the police know who the target is before Vincent gets to the club. One of the detectives even orders "get him out of there". But for some inexplicable reason, not only is he still sitting at his table when Vincent arrives, no attempt has been made or is being made to "get him out of there". Didn't understand that, nor did I understand how a small army of trained capable detectives and LAPD are unable to capture, take down, slow down or even tap Vincent on the shoulder as he executes a dozen people, including the witness. It's like they weren't even there, but they were. What were they doing? How did Vincent possibly get out of that? And they didn't leave the cab sitting in the middle of the street when they went in, so how the hell was it sitting there waiting for them to escape in? And while I'm at it, don't the bars and clubs in LA close at 2AM? It had to be well after 3AM by the time all this went down.
Again, these are all things that I wouldn't sweat in a typical silly action movie. I'd just watch it, give it a C- or worse, and move on. But this film aspires to be much more, and it really isn't.
The ending is, of course, predictable, with the final target being Smith, Max's earlier fare. Though there wasn't much to write home about in this resolution, it wasn't bad and I don't think it made the movie any better or worse. Foxx saves the day by himself, in what is at least a 20-30 minute (real time) sequence AFTER the cops have been called to the scene where you'd have to assume that a huge area manhunt would be underway for both Max and Vincent. Not a single cop ever comes near the vicinity, however.
Collateral has a lot going for it, but unfortunately more taking away from it. C.