title: "Collateral"
starring: Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith, Mark Ruffalo
genre: crime-drama
In "Collateral", Jamie Foxx plays Max, an educated taxi driver who knows the ins and outs of Los Angeles like the back of his hand. He knows the times and lengths of distances, and he spouts this information like anyone giving their name and date of birth. Max also has a picture of an exotic island under his visor; he dreams of using his patented water limo service to transport himself out of the turbulent grunge of downtown and into a utopian paradise.
Vincent, played by Tom Cruise, is a contract killer, hired to off five people in one night, and his choice of transportation is the cleanly interior of Max's cab. Vincent knows killing like Max knows L.A.; it's their craft, and their habitat, and most likely their role for life.
"Collateral" is a slick flick directed with a sleight of hand by Michael Mann ("Ali"). His scenes are equally dramatic and light, colorfully edited, intracately designed, and masterfully crafted. Mann wants us to see that Max and Vincent, two Angelenos assumed as different as can be, are actually characteristically the same character - caught up in the wind of the job, the city, and each other.
L.A. is the setting for Mann's film, and it's location is utilized: Vincent and Max go to alleys and clubs and apartments and the bleak, gray streets themselves; L.A. throbs, even in the middle of the night, and when Max's cab streaks through the glistening blur of downtown, so does L.A. streak through them.
Costarring Mark Ruffalo and Jada Pinkett Smith, "Collateral" is a virtuoso picture of fast-lane violence and carpooled psychology. The ending, as contrived as it is, is done in the Mann style we're accustomed to: fast, kinetic, and jazzed up. I could've done without some of the quotable word-play, because Vincent and Max capture the screen without saying what's on their mind. Foxx and Cruise are caricatures of grimy late-night fellows: they zip and zing as fast and deliberate as men captured, captured by downtown itself. grade: B+
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Quick Flicks:
"The Manchurian Candidate": Essentially a needless remake of the John Frankenheimer clasic, this "Candidate" is crafty, bloated drama. Denzel Washington, as Captain Bennett Marco, is a man plagued by dreams of a violent night in the Gulf War. His fellow soldier, Sgt. Raymond Shaw, apparently saved his life and the lives of Marco's battalion. Cut to the present time, where Shaw is running for a vice-presidency slot along side Arthur; could Marco's ominous dreams signal a governmental-corporate cover-up?, to place a puppeted, brainwashed soldier in the White House? The ending, which differs from the original, is taut and tense, and Washington's performance as the haunted captain is scary, grasping stuff. But this is apples and oranges compared to the prophetic parable and layered perfection of Frankenheimer's effort. Rent that one first. B-
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"Open Water"
"Meet the Fockers"
"Cellular"
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