Coyotes in Los Angeles

Rating: 5/10 (14 October 2007)

Uncontrolled action flick with no resemblance to reality. "Collateral", a noir-ish mixture of character study, police drama and suspense-thriller from Michael Mann, is completely wacko and out of control. You know you're in for it when L.A. cab-driver Jamie Foxx is introduced to us with the caveat that he wants to give it all up and retreat to an isolated tropical island (this is done by the musty cliché of having him continually looking at a postcard he has in the driver-side visor). Don't all cab-drivers long for the silence of an isolated island? The plot, with sociopathic assassin Tom Cruise taking Foxx for a ride, is equally clichéd, occasionally irrational and unlikely, and very often stupid. The picture doesn't particularly look good despite the two cinematographers credited (each equally fond of showy overhead shots of Los Angeles à la "West Side Story"), nor does Stuart Beattie's script sound good. Beattie drops the ball during several big sequences, such as the elongated one in which Foxx visits his mother in the hospital (culminating with a chase on an overpass wherein Foxx does something with a briefcase that defies explanation--except that it leads us to the next irrational scene). As for Cruise: he gets shot, he gets up; he slips on glass, he gets up; he's involved in a car wreck, he crawls out. Some may argue this is just another method of acting. ** from ****