Collateral (July 30/04)
Collateral marks Michael Mann's first film since the disappointing Ali, and returns him to the gritty streets of Los Angeles - the scene of his 1995 action masterpiece, Heat. But Mann's decision to shoot Collateral using digital cameras is baffling, particularly when you consider how effectively he's used film in the past. And because the film takes place mostly at night, the lack of celluloid couldn't be more obvious - not so much when the camera isn't moving, but unmistakable during the many frenetic sequences. It's a distracting stylistic choice that certainly doesn't add anything to the movie, leaving the audience disconnected from the story.
The film stars Jamie Foxx as Max, a kind taxi driver with dreams of starting his own limousine service. After flirting with a pretty lawyer (played by Jada Pinkett Smith), Max picks up a sharply dressed man named Vincent (Tom Cruise) who explains that he has a series of errands to run through the night. He offers Max $700 to drive him around, a proposition Max can't turn down. But it soon becomes evident that Vincent is not, in fact, a businessman meeting clients - but rather a hitman assigned the task of executing five people over the course of the next several hours.
It's the sort of setup that lends itself perfectly to a Michael Mann film; with its exciting action sequences and a cast comprised almost entirely of men, Collateral has Mann's fingerprints all over it. Yet despite the electrifying subject matter, the movie never quite becomes anything more than a slightly above average thriller. The film often feels like a rough cut, with certain sequences going on much longer than they should. As a result, Collateral is tremendously uneven - veering wildly between gripping and diverting.
Of course, it's the digital cinematography that quickly proves to be the most ineffectual aspect of the movie. Very few films have been able to use this new technology to their benefit - The Blair Witch Project and Session 9 are rare exceptions - with the rest unable to overcome the extremely obvious limitations of the format. It affords the film a feeling of cheapness, as though this weren't a big-budget production starring Tom Cruise; this is the sort of look one expects out of a straight-to-video schlockfest featuring Eric Roberts or Ice-T.
Having said that, there's no doubt that Collateral contains a number of exhilarating sequences - particularly a prolonged game of cat-and-mouse between Vincent and Max towards the end. Anchored by two fantastic lead performances - Cruise is completely credible as a stone-cold killer, while Foxx has literally never been better - the film is an ideal piece of summer entertainment. But when you've got someone like Mann behind the camera, it's impossible not to expect more than just a well-made action flick.
