2004 / 120 Minutes / R
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz

Those of you who still don’t believe Tom Cruise is one of the finest actors working today, get your ass to “Collateral”. That should be the last bit of evidence you really need. To see Tom unleash those demons he has hinted at in all his finest performances thus far (see also “Minority Report”, “Vanilla Sky” and “Magnolia”) in this strutting, mesmerizing and utterly disquieting performance is to witness a star not only raging bitterly against his former pretty boy persona but shattering it with a fucking sledge hammer. I personally believed he summoned the anger provided by a thousand tabloid articles and used all the angst and frustration of his constant marginalization by pigheaded critics and his grievances against a popular culture more interested in who he is sleeping with than who he is portraying to fuel this amazing performance. Tom has grown into a powerful, majestic force here, finally unleashing the full bore hurricane I always knew he had in him, and it is an astounding thing to witness.

The plot of the film is simplicity itself. A cab driver picks up two passengers one night. The first is a beautiful Federal prosecutor (Jada Pinkett Smith, great in this small dose) working on an important court case. The second is a dangerous, wolf-like hit man (gray like a wolf, in fact, from his steely gray hair and stubble to the cut of his sleek, gray suit) in town to kill five people in one evening. The hit man hires the cab driver and promises him money at first. Once the first body hits the roof of his cab, however, the hit man (named Vincent) must use more intense means of persuasion.

Jamie Foxx is better than you might ever suspect as the cab driver and titular character. (After all, once the screws start getting tightened, we soon realize that the Max the Cabbie really is nothing more than collateral, and even the most optimistic audience member will probably start thinking that Max ain’t coming out of this night alive.) He gives the role a certain world-weariness that enhances every scene. Foxx plays Max as a man who still pays lip service to his dreams even though we know from the set of his eyes that he never really believes they will come true. And his interplay with Cruise is an excellent example of give and take. Both actors give enough to make the other better and take enough to make their own performances better. It truly is a double act. If either performer were off his game, the other performance would have nothing on which to hang. Both Foxx and Cruise give the performance of their life here, and either one could be placed among the best performances in a decade.

And the look of the film adds immeasurably to these proceedings. The film has a gritty, handheld look that works marvelously on its behalf. I’m sure those involved with “The Bourne Supremacy” are properly envious of it. This film really does make you feel like you’re a fly on the wall at these events, and it does so without making you sick. The camera work is great, showing the full advantage of using digital video. And the lighting is natural and convincing. It’s also quite tightly edited and authoritatively directed and is sometimes quite lovely to look at. Somehow the film manages to be both gritty and beautiful, often at the same time.

But the real marvel of the film, as you might have guessed from my opening paragraph, is Tom Cruise. At first we think we’re just going to get the average Tom character, except that he kills people for a living rather than flying a jet or driving a racecar. But then we realize that Tom hasn’t HAD an average character for over a decade. Tom’s been constantly pushing himself in new directions and always rising to whatever challenge he’s given. At this point only a moron would accuse Tom of simply going through the motions (a moron or someone who has inexplicably missed “Magnolia”, “Jerry Maguire” and “Vanilla Sky”) and he certainly doesn’t do that here. He wins the audience, and Jamie, over with his charm and his innate likeability, and then he turns on us like a date rapist. He puts the audience through the same gauntlet he drives Max through. You’re never on sure footing with Vincent. Just when you think you’ve got him (and the movie itself) figured out, he and the movie will turn on you and leave you gasping for air.

Yes, my friends, this is a very intense movie. Michael Mann directs with a sure and steady hand, knowing just how to pace every scene and just which direction to push the film. The script by Stuart Beattie is a sterling example of avoiding clichés and keeping the viewer guessing. By the end of this film, I was truly on the edge of my seat. Hell, I was wound so tightly that I had cramps in my legs coming out of the theater just from being poised so tensely for so long. So now that I start bitching a little, you probably should just ignore it. But, for the sense of absolute criticism, I must nitpick a little. The end of the film does stray back to the norm a bit too closely, with a cat and mouse chase that is harrowing but is also a bit too normal for this film. The rest of the film is utterly unique and completely arresting. I, personally, have never seen a film like this before. The plot goes in new and exciting directions, using a great deal of misdirection to make you think you’re going to get the usual sort of scene and then side winding into all new territory. (There’s a terrific scene in a jazz club that should illustrate my point abundantly.) When the film does serve up a slightly tidy coincidence near the end, we’re so involved that we forgive it, but it still doesn’t fit quite right to me. Believe me, I’ve tried to justify this as more than mere coincidence and, sorry, but I just can’t quite do it. Still, the coincidence involves a character we’ve come to care about, and it does amp us up emotionally, so I’m torn. I love that I cared, but I wish they would’ve given us just a little more reason to believe it’s more than mere coincidence.

That and the chase scene (while dazzling, it’s still a chase scene and a rather traditional way to end a very untraditional movie) keep me from putting it at “A+” caliber, but it’s so damn close. So very, very close. It’s a mere hair away from “A+” status, and you better believe that’s good enough to warrant you going…daytime, nighttime, whenever. This movie demands to be seen. It’s so involving, so enthralling, so mesmerizing and caustically funny and intense. It’s so damn brilliant that I get breathless just thinking about it. And that has to do with every performer onscreen…but first and foremost that has to do with Tom giving a performance so alive and electric and utterly unpredictable and yet understandable, for inhabiting this soulless creature with just enough humanity to let us know he is alive and human but a few notches away from the rest of us. It has to do with Tom letting his dark side shine and breathe and take center stage. It has to do with a performance so great even the Academy shouldn’t be able to ignore it. Even the most critical of Tom’s detractors will have to admit that he has grown up, he’s matured and he’s brilliant and, in this movie at least, he’s not the sort of guy you’d want to meet in a dark alley.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 6th, 2004 at 1:40 pm and is filed under Dale's Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.