Michael Mann shows us how it's done

Rating: 10/10 (12 June 2005)

Riveting. Go see it. Look for a scene-stealing performance from Javier Bardem. Bardem easily holds his own against a surprisingly strong Jamie Foxx.
I'm an aspiring screenwriter. As such, I see a million movies. Most of them are terrible. I don't hate Hollywood movies as much as it sounds like I do, I just hate bad movies.
I want movies that draw me in intellectually and emotionally. I want to be riveted for 100 minutes and then I want to be paid off. I demand a tremendous amount from my movie-viewing (this is due to the pathetic state of my own life, but we won't get into that right now). I expect to be sucked IN to the world of the movie and not be allowed to think or feel anything else until I am released 100 minutes later.
That's what Collateral did for me. Cliché-free. Vincent is a bad guy but you don't hate him. In fact, he is quite sympathetic even though he is a serial killer. You feel for him. In his own way, he is not a bad man. Tom Cruise is not my favorite actor, but he has impressed me in Minority Report and now in this film. Here you get the feeling that Vincent went astray a very long time ago, and part of him knows it. And he desperately has tried to find a meaningful existence. In his own mind, he has justified the killings. He is a walking contradiction, a tortured soul. When he died at the end, I was moved to tears. And believe me, I'm no pushover.
Jamie Foxx was a very, very pleasant surprise. This movie came out before Ray, so he wasn't on the radar yet. But here, he just plain owns his character. Not much else to say, except that he breathes life into the film. He draws you in and holds you there.
The idea is deceptively simple. A hit man making his rounds one evening. But underneath the hood is a struggle for a meaningful existence. And brilliantly executed. I guarantee you will not see a whole bunch of stuff coming. If you REALLY did see it coming, drive to Hollywood because you're a better screenwriter than I am and you can earn a ton of $$$.
And style. Most directors we think of as "good" or even "great" directors, are just directors who know how to pick good material and can get good actors. I can count on one hand the number of directors I think actually have a truly unique visual signature: Scorsese and DePalma top the list. Kubrick is at the top of the list too. And Mann is at the top of the list. They're all tied for 1st, OK? I don't put Tim Burton on the list. Nor Coppola, Woody Allen, not even Welles. These guys are very good directors. But they do not possess a unique visual signature. You watch this picture and you know Mann directed it.
I think that's about it. This is how movies are supposed to be done, not moronic efforts like Vin Diesel crap or Colin Ferrell crap or Tarantino crap.
"Adapt, Darwin, i Ching, all that sh*t. Roll with it."