Nuanced and Perfect

Rating: 10/10 (1 March 2006)

Collateral works for several important reasons: the acting, soundtrack, directing, and story are all exceptional, without any major flaws. Reading the comments on this film from other viewers is almost amusing, because the film is almost too subtle for many people to fully appreciate. Here's why:
SPOILERS
To fully understand Collateral, it's helpful to watch the film several times, and keep in mind the "bigger picture" of the story. If you don't pay close attention, then you're not going to understand why the events in the movie transpire as they do.
The biggest complaint about the story is that Max, who has no experience with firearms, is somehow able to gun down a professional killer. But the true beauty of that scene is that not only does it make perfect sense, the outcome is almost inevitable. Not because the story dictates it, but because the mathematics of the people and environment add up to Vincent's death. Here's the breakdown of the scene: Car crashes, Vincent runs off without his pistol (H&K .40 S&W), but with a spare magazine still on his belt. Vincent then kills the guard and steals the guard's Smith & Wesson-which is in a different caliber. He undoubtedly shoots the guard at least three or four times.
Max throws down the police officer, and picks up Vincent's gun from the wreckage. He shoots the door twice to get in. Then he shoots Vincent once in the neck. Vincent fires five rounds at the fleeing Max (so he's already used eight or nine rounds).
In all likelihood suffering from blood loss, Vincent trades shots in the subway with Max: Vincent fires three shots, Max fires somewhere between 6 and 10. Except that Vincent is a trained marksman, and is aiming directly at Max by instinct. Max, on the other hand, wildly pulls the trigger, throwing his shots all over. Vincent's three shots all impact the metal frame of the door, and stop without going all the way through. One of Max's lucky shots goes through the window and hits Vincent in the side. At that point both run out of ammo: while Vincent has spare magazines, they won't fit in the gun he's holding. Already badly injured, Vincent realizes he's mortally wounded, and sits down to die.
That's only one example of how precisely thought-out and planned the film is. The laws of physics are never broken. Nor are the laws of reason: every action has a motive. By the end of the film, both men have intellectually demolished each other. The only thing left for Vincent is to complete the job, it is the very core of his existence. For Max, saving Annie is also saving himself-his morals, and his future. Neither of them desires to kill the other: Vincent warns Max by saying "I do this for a living" while Max shows stunned regret by telling the dying Vincent that they're almost to the next station, and medical care. At the heart of the film is the existential question of why we're here on this earth, and what it means for us. Neither Vincent nor Max seem to really have an answer to that question, and in comparison Vincent's nihilism and Max's working values both seem equal failures. It's clear in the jazz club scene that Vincent regrets the necessity of killing the musician. And it's clear after the Fever shootout that Vincent is seriously uncertain of his own reasons for being from his facial expressions and defensive tone. At the same time, Max is undergoing a transformation of his own, beginning with his confrontation with Felix, he begins to finally assert himself. Arguing with Vincent, crashing the cab, assaulting a police officer, and finally shooting at Vincent, he truly lets go and approaches Vincent's state of free-flowing improvisation. Only by letting himself act freely does Max become a whole person. The tragedy is that Vincent couldn't. Since one of the foundations of the film is the influence of chance in everyday life, one must wonder what could have been...
END SPOILERS
There's much more to be said about this film, multiple perspectives to approach it from, many more subtle hints buried in the material that I'd like to explain. But regardless, Collateral is a masterpiece of recent cinema, and fully deserves to be ranked with other classics of drama.