not the best Mann, but still a man to watch

Rating: 6/10 (30 August 2004)

I agree with all those reviews that pan Collateral's script, there's simply nothing in it that you haven't seen before and that you didn't expect. Worse still, you expected it crisper, taut. It's hard to find enough tension going on between Vincent and Max because there's no interplay between Vincent and Max, there's Vincent playing with Max, poor Max is taking it up the derrière most of the time.How Max can manage such docility is hard to get, because Vincent, after all, is a pro but not a brute, he's a gentleman round the edges, which ends up marring the whole thing. Neither fish nor meat. The actors are good, though and although Mann doesn't seem particularly concerned with improving the script's underdevelopment he's got enough talent in him to make it a watchable and occasionally warm thriller. And there's LA... Never been there but the mann sure looks at her with a lover's eye but does he trust his woman?