Intense

Rating: Null/10 (12 August 2004)

This was the movie I had been anticipating all summer. Tom Cruise as an assassin, and I love good against-type casting. This movie is an intense roller-coaster ride with excellent atmosphere supplied by Mann, and two great performances from Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx, and sprinkled with character performances from Mark Ruffalo, Javier Bardem, Bruce McGill, Peter Berg, and Irma P. Hall.
Foxx, without any underlying comic edge to his performance, is perfect as the mild-mannered cab driver named Max, a man who has memorized the fastest routes to any destination in LA and dreams of opening a fancy limousine service. After dropping off a young assistant district attorney (Jada Pinkett Smith), he picks up Vincent (Cruise), and so begins their night of killing.
With some serious 5 o'clock shadow, silvery-gray hair and matching chrome suit, Tom Cruise is playing a much older person than before. He is totally devoid of sympathy for the dead, and is convinced that what he is doing is right, or at least acceptable. In some odd way, the very things that make him such a heartless person, almost redeem him, as we know that this sociopath isn't just a cartoon of someone, but morally bankrupt about what he does. He's been contacted by a drug trafficker named Felix (Bardem) to kill five people.
They travel throughout Los Angeles making Vincent's rounds. The digital photography helps to give the movie a documentary feel. The film is gritty and realistic feeling. The last few minutes betray this, to some effect, when Vincent becomes almost super-human, but he goes out nicely, in a way that is somewhat improbable, but nonetheless appropriate.
This film will likely (or hopefully) garner nominations for the two leads and the director. It's a stylish piece of work that works more like a horror movie than a thriller. In the theater I found it difficult to breathe as the intense action and suspense kept elevating. There was always a part of me--don't as me why--that was rooting for the bad guy, but he still scared me. Maybe it's when you take that Tom Cruise charm and twist it around into a bad thing.