In a world of billions, who really cares? Good point.

Rating: 4/10 (20 October 2005)

Tom Cruise as the soulless professional killer asks who cares if any particular person dies -- one might ask the same question about this story. I'll admit that for a slam-bang action movie it was shot well and the physical effects did not defy the laws of physics as Hollywood is so fond of doing. Of course, the story line defies all laws of probability, and as such is so typically Hollywood that you could set your watch to the ending if you're appropriately cynical (as I became, eventually).
When Cruise tells cabbie Foxx to pull around the back of the building to the alley, of course the body that "accidentally" hurtles out of the window exactly above where the cab is parked lands smack dab on the cab. Compared to the rest of the story, this colossal coincidence seems perfectly routine, if not expected. Never mind that the meek and mild-mannered cab driver masquerades successfully as a professional killer to a gang of killers, a cop who is looking for him ends up in the same elevator with him later on, and lo and behold, Cruise's final victim ends up being a pretty lawyer whom Foxx had ferried across town just hours before (and also never mind that the beautiful and driven lawyer gives a disheveled Foxx her card and tells him to call her). All of this crap could only happen in a Hollywood movie. I was embarrassed for the writers, but they not only are unashamed, but proud of this kind of garbage!
If you want to lose yourself in an action movie that has less intelligent conversation or story development than a Spongebob episode, watch on! Otherwise, skip this slick, fast-moving fairy tale.