solid, well-acted thriller

Rating: 8/10 (7 January 2005)

'Collateral' is a well done thriller, with an intelligent script, logic, pace (for most of the time) and succeeds to avoid many of the traps and clichés of the genre The action takes place in LA at night, and although the large concrete jungle plays a role in the action I feel the director could have done more with the location. Cruise as a paid killer on a multiple murder mission tries to break his positive characters type, and succeeds it very well, in a cinema season where we have seen other great actors Ike Hanks or Robin Williams taking the main negative role in movies with similar good results. Foxx is his positive counter-part, a cab driver becoming tool and victim of Hanks, and the strange and developping relationship between the two is the backbone of the movie.
Not all is perfect in the movie. Some script details around are not as original as the main story, and the ending needs to wrap-up everything, and it does it in a sligthly commercial and disappointing manner. Overall it's a good film, worth watching, and not only in order to see Tom Cruise. 8 out of 10 on my personal scale.