The Tominator

Rating: 8/10 (7 August 2004)

Michael Mann has directed a lot of films I haven't liked, but Collateral, I am very pleased to say, is not one of them. This is a fantastic movie, with superb performances from its two leads, Jamie Foxx (soon to be a major star, I believe, thanks to this performance and his starring role as Ray Charles in the upcoming Ray), and Tom Cruise, who is perfect as the killing machine I affectionately named the Tominator around four-fifths of the way through the film.
Collateral is sophisticated, clever, sordid, witty, outrageous, stunningly visual and diabolically intense all at the same time; chalk it up to Mann's penchant for showing off the best and worst elements of his terrain - in this case, it's Los Angeles, and every scene is perfectly shot (no pun intended) and beautifully enacted. There is a slick little plot twist toward the end - a precocious little plot twist, I call it, because technically we shoulda seen it coming (and perhaps a lot of viewers did), but I was so caught up in all the splendid distractions that I didn't realize where the film was heading, but it was one of those twists, that, when you DO realize, you find yourself literally giddy with excitement at how it's going to play out. This hasn't happened to me in a Michael Mann film before. And also thumbs up for the casting of the great Javier Bardem as Felix -- his Santa Claus story was priceless.