Cruise's most nuanced performance of the modern era, or any era of his career for that matter!

Rating: 9/10 (19 May 2017)

First off, let me remind you: Tom Cruise is the "movie star." If you didn't know that already, then, hey, welcome to the planet earth (an apology in advance for most of my nonsense). A staple of cheesy '80s movies (Riskey Business, Cocktail, Top Gun, All the Right Moves, etc.) he escaped into the next two decades to front some very fine and profitable motion pictures and as of 2017, become one of, if not THE, highest paid actor in Hollywood (he is actually but the media won't claim it because he told them not to). But merely being paid well for acting doesn't mean you can actually act (but let's not point fingers shall we?). With the impending release of the Mummy, that same action movie with a different twist, Collateral is one of my favourite Tom Cruise movies and where he demonstrated his best work being on the opposite side of the law the main antagonist. AND it's right on the money!
Collateral is hands down Tom Cruise's most nuanced performance of the modern era, or any era of his career for that matter. Playing off of mostly Jamie Foxx during the entire run of the film, Cruise plays the role of Vincent. He's just a guy who's in Los Angeles for a couple of days, with some time to kill. Actually, he has some people to kill as well, and he forces Foxx's character of Max to ferry him around from murder scene to murder scene in order to finish the jobs at hand. Naturally, Max puts up a fight and tries to escape with some rather crafty and unconventional means.
However, Vincent wouldn't be very good at his job if he wasn't able to improvise and adapt to his environment, which means Max is going to have to put up a huge fight to escape his supposed fate.
The reason that Vincent is Tom Cruise's best — and probably most important — performance of his career is that it's one of the rare moments where he plays someone we're not supposed to root for. Sure, he previously got to flex his villain muscles in Interview With The Vampire, but Lestat has more of a comedic edge to him that makes the character more enjoyable when he murders people in cold blood.
Jamie Foxx's Character, Max is a decent guy, a taxi driver who is sort of in love with one of his passengers. He knows where she live since he's the one who carried her around in that taxi a coupe of times but can't seem to build up the courage to ask her out. Cruse's character, Vincent, on the other hand, is an existential sociopath. He wonders what our place on this Earth is all about, and so far the answers he's come up with aren't strong enough for him to stop killing people.
The man is goal focused to the end, even taking some hits as he chases Max down during the film's action-packed finale. And just when you think he's about to close in for the kill, he's gunned down by sheer, dumb, cosmic luck. In that final moment, he realises that it's all for nothing. No one will notice he was there, because it was what he'd always aimed for. His goal was always to leave no trace behind, and he succeeds admirably.
While he's the film's villain, and a cold-heart-ed killer; Tom Cruise manages to have some of that mischievous fun that he had with Lestat so many years ago.
His performance as Vincent walks a tightrope of calm logic, fierce rage, and grinning idiot. Yet somehow, he gets you to feel just a little sorry for him at the end, as he's slumped over on that train – which calls back to the story told earlier in the film. I hope Cruise and director Michael Mann get to work together again at some point in the future, as this film brought out some of the best qualities of why he still remains an acting force of nature. If you've never seen Collateral, or haven't experienced it in a good long while, I highly recommend you do so. The film is as fresh today as it was back in 2004.