Slick but empty

Rating: 4/10 (26 August 2005)

Tom Cruise plays a soulless hit-man while Jamie Foxx has the thankless job of driving him around. Adds up to a pretty picture but the supposedly "deep" dialogue can't make up for yet another hit-man picture. Watching this film made me long for the days of the Insider or Heat when the relationships meant something. Here there are too many clichés- the goodhearted cabdriver, the philosophical hit-man, the cop that figures it all out. Perhaps it would be more interesting if it wasn't in LA- Mann's LA where everything is slick and people dance in unison in a club. Meanwhile there's lots of driving around in the cab and occasional gunfights where a machine-like Cruise becomes the Terminator.