Karma hangs on the tiniest details, like a perfect script...

Rating: 10/10 (18 April 2017)

Reviewing "Collateral", I'm tempted to use my rhetorical shtick, praising the film's noir undertones while throwing in each paragraph words like 'existential', 'nightmarish', 'life-changing' or 'character-study'. But watching this film a third time made me question my habits and my certitudes as deeply as I could relate to Max, the humble and sympathetic cab driver who gets a real taste of that vague notion of something "that happens" and that starts with S. And that's exactly the point, Max at 6 pm doesn't know it yet, but he'll be a totally different man at 4 am.
What happened to make this transition so believable and captivating is something I don't want to intellectualize much; its intelligence speaks for itself. So many directors try to achieve greatness through artsy stuff and heavy symbolism, but Michael Mann doesn't need any of these artifices. All it took was a good script, good actors and a good story, perfectly crafted by Stuart Beattie, with profound dialogues that never feel overwritten. It is crucial because the film's tension relies on the credibility of the interactions between Max (Jamie Foxx) and his client, Vincent, the ruthless killer played by Tom Cruise. If Max is the talkative driver who asks customers where they're from, he becomes a cliché and the film is over, just as if Vincent was a sort of human Terminator.
This is a film of a few characters but with no room for improvisation. Speaking of this, one of the most memorable moments involves a jazz-man played by Barry Shabaka Henley. He's got such a terrific story about Miles Davis that it is worth watching the film just to hear that man recalling one of his life's happiest moments. I wasn't surprised, watching the bonus features, that Mann and Beattie had written detailed back-stories about each character so they could be immersed into their lives just before playing them. What Cruise, Foxx and all the other cast-members did was approaching the lives of their characters even when it didn't interfere with the story. Mark Ruffalo took shooting lessons although he never fires his gun. The point is to make you care for the character as someone with a past, before watching him in the present, which is the whole point of Max and Vincent's conflicting principles: once you know someone's past, you can't shoot him.
Now, take the very first scene between Max and Annie (Jada Pinkett Smith), at first, he knows exactly how long the road will take and how to avoid traffic jams. That's not a detail, when we spend days and days driving in the same town, we know these things. I trust Mann who knows L.A. more than any other director and if I did a movie about Casablanca, I could also reach such precision. But see how this works in the film, from his exactitude when it comes to predict the exact timing, he manages to elicit a positive response from her and one thing leading to another, he tells her about his plans to start a limo company and that his cab business is all temporary, that's the way relationships start. And when she leaves, we immediately understand why Max is angry, he forgot to give his phone number but then she comes back and gives him her card, it's even better because that just saved her life. Had Max given his phone number, she would be dead by the end.
And this hazardous aspect of Karma structures the film: if two cops weren't called in emergency, they would be dead too, if Max hadn't shouted for help, two thugs would've been alive. Sometimes, life hangs on the tiniest details, like a good script. In "Collateral" many things are immediately guessable when you pay attention to the lines, to the body language. Max' exactitude also plays like a conversation starter with Vincent, although he doesn't expand his heart but he says that he wants to start a business and makes enough an impression on Vincent so that he inevitably asks him to drive him the whole night, for seven-hundred dollars, Max needs money and Vincent, with his gray suit and gray hair, looks like the man of his job, Max' instinct is failed. In fact, all through the film, many mistakes are guided by habits, routines and misguiding instincts, in other words, things we take for granted.
Viewers also take things for granted with action movies: shootouts, car chases seem like obligatory ingredients but the way it is handled by Mann is beyond any clichés. I used to dislike the ending because it felt too conventional but then I realized it made some clever and stylish nods to Hitchcock and it was the only way to make Vincent's entrance in Max' life pay off. Had Vincent killed Max and Annie, it would have been pointless and then make Vincent's point about life's pointlessness in the 'grand scheme of things' but that was an angle the script didn't take. If anything, "Collateral" proved that the world is, paraphrasing "Se7en", a nasty place worth fighting for. Vincent wasn't 100% wrong though since his death did prove his initial point about people's carelessness.
In fact, there are many things in Vincent that Max uses for his own good and that might help him for the future by the end of the day, Max has learned a lot about himself, and gotten many things straight by "finally" acting like Vincent. That's how you close a character's arc. As for Vincent's arc, I was wondering how could a pro like him miss Max in the subway, the reason is even more brilliant, he's a professional. Vincent trademark three-point shooting two in the thorax, one in the head hit the sliding door, Max shot on the glass and got him, as simple as that, like Max, Vincent was victim of his habits.
See, "Collateral" is very good but with an eye for detail, it becomes a masterpiece.