Suspenseful and often well-crafted, but far too long

Rating: 6/10 (18 July 2006)

Heat-director Michael Mann delivers a fairly thrilling but uneven action-thriller. I enjoyed the first half but I gradually lost interest  this is perhaps strange since the second half was by far more action-packed than the first. However something about it just made it more generic and less exciting. This is also true for the whole film; some parts and generic while some are truly gripping.
Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise are both great in their respective parts, Foxx as a cab driver leading a mundane life driving nights in L.A. and Cruise as the contract killer hitching a fare in his taxi to do his dirty work all around town. In spite of having a reasonably grounded and plausible storyline, Collateral occasionally features events and developments that feel altogether unbelievable. Max the cab driver (Jamie Foxx), for instance, picks up on his hit-man ways quickly and seemingly effortlessly whenever it calls for it. But the experienced professional hit-man Vincent (Tom Cruise) has a lot of trouble even shooting straight and covering up tracks.
The philosophical ideas that are put forward in the film (by forcing them into conversation during the cab fare) are meant to add more depth to the story, but in truth, end up as pretty bland and well-milked observations. For example, Vincent frequently talks about how people are insignificant and about a dead man on the subway going six laps before anybody notices him. "Get with it. Millions of galaxies of hundreds of millions of stars, in a speck on one in a blink. That's us, lost in space. The cop, you, me... Who notices?" He is, of course, trying to justify his killing.
I would like to give Collateral 6.9/10, because it IS actually a well-crafted thriller... but since you can't rate in decimals, and I am reluctant to giving it a 7, this will only get 6/10. Sorry, Mann - not your best film.