don't expect too much action

Rating: Null/10 (18 August 2004)

An enjoyable, somewhat original albeit flawed film worth seeing.
There weren't really any dull moments in this real-time journey through LA at night.
Its mainly an action/thriller movie but it also has some good characterization, with Foxx playing an uptight cab driver and Cruise playing a hit-man, Vincent, who forcibly hires Foxx's character to transport him to his targets.
There's even some good dialogue, including some of interestingly dark quality from Vincent. I'm reminded of "American Psycho" somewhat as Vincent rationalizes that killing a few people here and there isn't all that significant. I'm glad there wasn't a silly scene toward the end in which Vincent repents; instead he remains true to his character until the end.
A couple of problems I had with the movie were the duality of Cruise's character and the ending. You see, Cruise's character, Vincent, is in some scenes a psycho-bad-ass-super-killer, and in others a charming mama's boy who likes to play matchmaker for his fellow brother. It seems to me that the good-Vincent scenes were thrown in for comic relief, so as to keep the movie "mainstream"; this choice takes away from the realism and this critic's enjoyment of the film.
I thought the movie was quite original for an action movie up until the super-cliché ending. I won't spoil it for you, but I can't count the number of times this type of ending occurs in other movies.