Tom Cruise plays against type in this solid thriller

Rating: 8/10 (4 December 2013)

Jamie Foxx plays Max; a Los Angeles cab driver who dreams of owning his own limousine company; he is fooling himself of course but that dream gets him through the nights as he drives various people around. Usually people just want to be taken somewhere and be dropped off but tonight is different; a man wants to be driven to five different locations before catching a morning flight. That man is Vincent, played by Tom Cruise. Vincent is a hired killer; very cool, very professional it's just a job to him. Max learns what Vincent does at the first stop off when a body crashes onto the roof of his cab; after that he is forced to take Vincent to his other stops and it is very clear that if he fails to do as instructed even more people will die.
Going into this film I had little idea what to expect; all I knew about it was what was written on the box; it turns out it was a pretty good film. It was great seeing Tom Cruise playing against type as the sociopathic gun for hire; he made the character frightening yet strangely likable even though he was doing terrible things. Jamie Foxx also put in a solid performance as Max. The action was solid and there were quite a few tense scenes as well as some real surprises; I certainly wasn't expecting the police officer investigating the murders to get killed himself. If you like your humour dark there are quite a few good laughs to be had as well as some more poignant moments. There are some flaws of course; the finale is a little cliché and relies of one hell of a coincidence but that doesn't spoil the film. Director Michael Mann did a great job keeping the action tense and filming night time LA in a way that made the lights of the city and its constant traffic seem genuinely beautiful. If you are a fan of thrillers this is definitely worth checking out.