Cinema Tweets@CinemaTweets1
From the moment Tom Cruise’s stoic face fills the screen in the opening shots of Collateral (🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟), it’s nearly impossible to move an inch for the next 120 minutes. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen this film, each time I sit down to watch Michael Mann do his thing, I’m left totally stunned. This isn’t Mann’s best film. That distinction is reserved for Heat- one of the greatest films of the 20th century. But for any other director, Collateral would rank as the single best work of their life. An all-time LA film. An all-time Cruise performance. An all-time 21st century noir. Movies like this don’t just come along.
Collateral is the story of two diametrically opposed men whose paths cross on one fateful night in Los Angeles. Jamie Foxx is Max, a cab driver with dreams of something greater in life. Tom Cruise is Vincent, a pay-for-hire killer. How these men cross paths is simple: Cruise is in LA for a night & needs a cabbie to drive him from “job to job”. This leads us down a 2 hour path of completely unpredictable stops, wildly entertaining dialogue between Max & Vincent, and an ending that I find totally redeemable.
Much has been made over the fact that Michael Mann pioneered the use of HD digital cameras, particularly in the use of this film- which allowed Mann to capture nighttime shots throughout LA. I don’t know precisely what or how Mann did it, but Los Angeles has never looked this sharp at night. It’s never looked this crisp. As someone who lives here, I can tell you definitively that when the sun falls & night creeps up, this city completely changes. And Mann does such a masterful job of capturing what it’s like in this city in the late hours. It’s a different world. The way Mann captures over-head shots of Foxx’s cab or places the camera right behind Foxx’s shoulder, it’s all tactile filmmaking that contributes to the film’s immersion. Simply put, no one shoots LA like Mann. It’s his turf.
Something that really caught my attention this time around is noticing how deep this cast runs. Cruise & Foxx couldn’t be better & I’ll get to them more in a moment, but when the second level of your cast is filled with Oscar-caliber actors like Javier Bardem & Mark Ruffalo, it’s just unfair. Every last actor in this movie adds something to the film. On a -1 to 0 to 1 scale, every actor in this film is a 1.
And that includes Cruise & Foxx. Foxx earned a Best Supporting Oscar nomination for this film, which put him in rarefied air: he earned two Oscar nominations in one year & won Best Actor for Ray. To this day, it’s still one of the most impressive things I’ve seen when it comes to award’s season. Earning two nominations in one year is insane itself. But to win for Ray & have the other performance be this? It’s legendary. The power in Foxx’s performance as Max is that he transforms throughout the movie from powerless to embowered. We meet a version of Max that’s sort of a total shlub- he dreams of a limo service & he eats subway sandwiches in his lap while driving entitled lawyers around LA. But by the end of the film, he stands for something. He fights for something. Foxx steps into that evolution as well as any actor can- and it’s why he earned that Oscar nomination.
But then there’s Cruise. I’ve spent this review talking about Mann, the cast, Foxx, but the biggest star of this film is Tom Cruise. I will absolutely listen to those who suggest that this is the best performance of Cruise’s storied career. I’m not the first person to say it, but I really, really wish Cruise played the heavy more often. He’s so fucking explosive. His intensity radiates off the screen. Like so many great actors, Cruise’s power is in his eyes. Yes, the walk & the physicality is all there. But Cruise’s eyes are darting- piercing- they’re weapons of their own. The white hair & the tailored suit - not to mention unforgettable dialogue that Cruise is strapped with- are all iconic at this point. I wish Cruise worked with directors like Michael Mann more. There’s still time, there’s still hope- and I know Cruise is doing that with Digger this year. But at day’s end, Cruise in this film is some of the best acting I’ve ever seen.
Masterpiece.
