Enjoyable, even if pretty unrealistic

Rating: 5/10 (7 September 2004)

A few years ago it would have been hard to imagine Tom Cruise playing a bad guy but he has pulled it off twice in Minority Report and now Collateral. However, I agree that Jamie Foxx stole the show as the cab driver and I hope to see him in such excellent roles in the future. Overall it was a pretty exciting movie with great cinematography and editing but I can't help but pick at the unrealistic elements:
1. How come there were no witnesses to the first killing. I mean it was in a residential street, a man fell from three floors onto a car, if that happened in my street day or night, people would open their windows etc. There would certainly be no time for the body to be put in the boot and two people to talk loudly as they do here. Maybe all the residents of the street in this movie wear ear plugs and take hardcore sleeping pills!!
2. Tom cruise appeared to be invincible as he shot away his foes in the nightclub and the police were pretty ineffectual. In addition, the drug baron instead of being escorted away from danger by his bodyguards, as is surely the norm, was instead left open and unprotected while he watched as his hench men were slaughtered one by one, until Vincent had a pretty easy job of blasting him away.
3. Also, many police helicopters appeared to be chasing the taxi after the night club shoot out only to disappear as the car sped up. Surely this is pretty inaccurate that a s***ty, battered old cab can outrun high tech police helicopters!
4. The police were'nt sure how many men were in the car and suspected that it was just the cab driver that had gone nuts. But how come with all the technology available, especially with heat sensors in helicopters they never found out that there were two men!
5. Also, in the penultimate scene where Vincent is trying to kill the top attorney in her 'top security offices'there was no top security to speak of, just a shot of an archetypal fat looking security guard, lying dead to one side. Surely important buildings such as this have greater security than that. I might be wrong but are nt they weird up to police stations or private security firms in 'real life'.
6. In the same section of the movie, where it is supposed to be 4am we get a shot out of the window where we can see the many lights of cars that comprise a long traffic jam. A huge traffic jam at 4am! has there been an outbreak of a swarm of locusts in the city or did they shoot this film in Winter during rush hour!
I know it is only a movie' but these unrealistic elements break the cinematic illusion for me, man!