Maybe I Expected Too Much

Rating: 7/10 (8 January 2005)

I was genuinely excited to watch collateral. The previews looked so promising. Tom Cruise playing a bad guy was just too much to pass up. I've liked Jamie Foxx ever since "In Living Color," and admired Michael Mann since "Thief". Sorry to say, I can understand why "Collateral" barely broke even. Despite fine performances, I never felt drawn in, only an observer of a slick, manipulative movie. Some of the dialogue was nearly unintelligable, which also didn't help. Also, there seemed only minimal chemistry between Foxx and Jada Pinkett, possibly due to the contrived opening scenes between them. Mann also should've used a better known actor to play the undercover cop that tries to help Foxx, and maybe a lesser known actress to play Pinkett's role, given her passive efforts in the story.
WARNING: SPOILERS Yellow cabs with broken windows stick out like a sore thumb. I know, my first day in LA in the seventies, I was stopped ten minutes after I got on the road in my car with a broken windshield. Why didn't Cruise find another car, even another cab instead of running the risk of being detected? The worst thing about "Collateral" is the ending. Jada Pinket, as a prosecutor, is an officer of the court, and she committed a criminal act when she and Jamie left Cruise's dead body on the train. Why didn't they just pull the emergency handle? Besides, don't LA Metro trains have TV cameras in the cars? Further, Cruise may have still had the memory stick on his person. There was a chance the LCD unit left in Foxx's cab would fail, costing him the only physical evidence that Cruise was "Vincent".
END OF SPOILERS Despite these whoppers of logic, "Collateral" is still an entertaining movie. Just don't expect a great one.
I give "Collateral" a weak "7".