Collateral

COLLATERAL (15)

D: Michael Mann

Dreamworks/Paramount (Michael Mann & Julie Richardson)

USA 🇺🇸 2004

115 mins

Crime/Thriller

W: Stuart Beattie

DP: Dion Beebe & Paul Cameron

Ed: Jim Miller & Paul Rubell

Mus: James Newton Howard

PD: David Wasco

Tom Cruise (Vincent), Jamie Foxx (Max Durocher), Jada Pinkett Smith (Annie Farrell), Mark Ruffalo (Ray Fanning), Peter Berg (Richard Weidner), Bruce McGill (Frank Pedrosa), Irma P. Hall (Ida Durocher)

Tom Cruise plays cool-as-ice hitman Vincent, who hires mild-mannered cab driver Max (Foxx) to drive him around downtown Los Angeles while he carries out a series of assassinations. A battle of wits develops between the two when Max discovers that he's playing chauffeur for a killer, setting up a tense thriller with two actors on top form.

For the most part, Collateral is a stylish piece of work with dazzling photography and slick editing. It's all rather unfortunate that the final 15 minutes fizzles out rather than emulating all that came before it. Despite the poor ending, it's still an impressive thriller for the majority of the running time.

7/10