Well-crafted elaboration on a simple story

Rating: Null/10 (16 September 2004)

Some of these negative reviews for this movie amaze me - I think they may need to return to their sidewalk line for the next Star Wars movie. Since the days he revolutionized television with Miami Vice (jokes aside, it was a revolution), Michael Mann has not ceased to surprise. Collateral's beautiful and immediate cinematography has a very film-noirish way of pulling you into Mann's Los
Angeles, as he did in Heat. The way he treats the simple hit-man premise with such emotional and technical innovation brings to mind Soderberg's The Limey, in which his (at times slightly overwrought) editing and good direction of great actors makes a simple revenge theme into something much deeper. Speaking
of immediate cinematography, as in Heat with its million-round shooting scene, there's something about his filming of gunplay that makes you feel as though
you need to really watch your back. More than just a hand-held camera and
loud bangs, there's something so totally different in his violence compared with the ridiculous ballet of Woo or Bruckheimer. If anyone can explain this, please let me know. It may be the realism of the scene before the shooting starts that makes it seem so dangerous.
Cruise is very good as the first purely bad guy I've seen him play, and Foxx
surprised the hell out of me in his excellent dramatic role - a bit of which you could sense in Ali, and maybe more so in his upcoming role as Ray Charles. As far as promising black actors go, he makes Will Smith look like he's back in the mansion in Bel Air, while Denzel and Samuel L. seem destined to play the
tough guy for the rest of their careers. Foxx has serious potential. Cruise's performance was no surprise after Magnolia, but good nonetheless. I may have noticed a flash of that dying man's redemption that we saw in the closing shot of Heat, as DeNiro and Pacino held hands...though I may be wrong. He may have
been pure badness.
In all, a pleasant surprise, and a must addition for the collection. Flashy, ultra- digital camera-work, softened by a kick ass and non-cliché soundtrack, very
good acting. Smooth and slick, like LA wishes and often thinks it really is. A solid 8, but I'll grade on a curve for the year so far and give it an 8.5.