Cruise Control Is Still On

Rating: Null/10 (9 August 2004)

At first I was not sure if I'd make it out to the first weekend of COLLATERAL. Something about the shot on video image just kind of dropped it down a bit and my first gut reaction was that it was more of an experimental movie because of it.
But, mustering up an appetite to see a movie after a Friday night dinner, I decided to go see COLLATERAL.
The good: Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx have great chemistry. Tom Cruise manages to play a killer and still come off as cool as only Tom Cruise can do. Jamie Foxx does a great job of playing a timid and optimistic cabbie caught up in the middle of something very bad. Michael Mann's direction is the work of a master.
The bad: Remember how I said the digital video thing was a negative? Well, it was a distraction as I watched the movie and I kept thinking, "This would have looked better on film. For a few hundred grand more, they could have done that." It just doesn't seem right to have a random TV drama look better than this big theatrical movie and we're paying $10 a ticket in Los Angeles... and TV is nearly free.
SPOILER (sort of): If Jada's character was local to LA (she had business cards, a local phone number, and her name on an office door), why was she taking a taxi to her office like a visitor? In NYC, the taxi thing might fly. But in LA, a powerful woman would have a car.
Still, the movie is definitely worth seeing. B+ (would have been an 'A' had they shot on film)