Collateral

There has always been something about Michael Mann's films. He has the ability to surprise us with the little details, perhaps the reason why some people find his films boring while others find them strangely entertaining, even when most of the time, his characters just talk.

Which makes Collateral a bit of a weird action movie, since action movies should contain less talk and more action. The premise is straightforward: a taxi driver picks up the worst (and yet, possibly the most interesting) customer he would ever pick up in his life, an efficient cold-blooded killer played by Tom Cruise. They have five stops to make, and with every murder, the taxi driver feels more distraught, helpless and trapped finding that suddenly all his future plans don't matter anymore.

There is a lot of philosophising in the film between the killer and the taxi driver. I'll let you find out for yourself what they talk about. The action sequences are not bombastic, explosive or in your face but grounded in reality. What would happen if a killer climbed into your taxi and forced you at gunpoint to ferry him around while he 'makes his rounds'? In most movies there is always a circumstance allowing the protagonist to distract the killer. That never happens here the taxi driver's situation gets worse and worse; at one point the killer asks to visit the taxi driver's mother in the hospital.

Which is what makes this film so gripping, just like in Heat; events that don't happen every day happen, but in a way we can believe and wonder; if in that situation, what would I really do?

The acting is top-notch (Tom Cruise is delicious in roles like this and Jamie Foxx is next seen in Ray where he's been generating Oscar buzz), the dialogue is engaging, the shoot-outs are intense. Put all that under the solid direction of Michael Mann, and you get a film that everyone talks about. Even just the way Mann filmed night-time Los Angeles is something people are still discussing.

Sebastian Ng