Review : "Collateral"

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Cinemaddiction
"Collateral"

"Collateral" is the latest offering from director Michael Mann, who gave us "Heat", and most recently, "Ali". Much like Muhammed's opponents, this one was down for the count before the movie even started.

The film opens with Max (Jamie Foxx), a modest taxi cab driver who picks up Annie, a defense attourney (Jada Pinkett Smith), at which time they engaged in friendly conversation regarding the quickest routes, including a wager as to who would be right, which sets up Max's love interest/connection to Smith.

Enter a hitman by the name of Vincent, played by a silver haired, scruffy Tom Cruise. Vincent makes Max an offer which he can't refuse, no questions asked, which is the subseqent buyout of Max's trust and cooperation. As Vince is chauffered around town, all suspicions are confirmed that this won't be any ordinary shift, while the body count pile up, so do Max's fears.

Going into the movie expecting absolutely nothing, I was still interested in seeing how Cruise would execute his heel turn. Playing out much like a rogue version of Ethan Hunt, it wasn't much of a stretch from his "M:I" character. He wasn't as abrasive or sarcastic, and Cruise's attempts at reasoning, coupled with browbeating psychoanalysis with Fox, seemed ungenuine and pointless, respectively.

Jamie Foxx however was extremely refreshing. He played an excellent "Average Joe", who turned up the heat when need be in a very convincing, and sly manner. There was a scene in which he was sent into a Latino nightclub by Vincent, to pose as himself, and in Max's encounter, he went from nervous wreck to stone faced assassin in 3 seconds flat. His acting was the closest thing to "Collateral" as I could expect, in exchange for my for $5.25.

The story had potential. Quiet night, cabbie is approached by a hitman with a generous offer, and we watch what transpires. Instead, it's potential turned into monotony, with predictible outcomes, a character who takes the law into his own hands, and a cliche "suspenseful" ending to tie up lose ends, which is inevitable 1/2 through the movie. The ending was spoiled early. The one thing I can appreciate is Cruise's delivery of Vince's hits, deadpan expressions and nonchalant mannerisms, as well as the murder's visuals.

In closing, the movie was very basic. A unique storyline with poor execution, no twists, yet still commendable performances from the 2 lesser known stars of the film.

BloomBabyGirl
im gonna see it tomorrow n i think itll be good

forumcrew
cinemadiction is exactly right about this one.. saves me the trouble of writing much... a few other complaints with it the fbi just kinda disapeared and even though they had the license plate of the cab cops just cruised on by... and also vincent would of never missed him when shooting through the glass in the building and definantly not on the train..

i do wanna add that jamie foxx's performance was very good, and i liked mark ruffalo in it as well.. although i was disapointed because i saw jason stathom at the start but he never returned

to sum up see the bourne supremacy instead

theone0103
Collateral

Story:
Max (Jamie Foxx) is a taxi driver in Los Angeles. He picks up a person who is a good looking lady named Annie (Jada-Pinkett Smith) who is a lawyer. When Max drives her to her location he gets her number, then as you would think "it started just like anyother night". Until...he took a man named Vincent (Tom Cruise) to his destination and found out that Vincent wanted Max to drive him around to all these different destinations.

As you get to Vince's first destination, he shoots a man and he falls out of a window onto Max's cab. Then Vincent comes out to say to Max that he has a gun and he is a killer, making Max think that he will drive Vincent around to kill people.

The man that was thrown out of the window was named Ramone. There is an FBI agent that was supposed to meet him there who is named Ray Fanning (Mark Ruffilo) and finds out that there was a crime scene there, but doesn't know who the killer is...yet. After a while Max starts to get mad at Vincent when they meet Max's mother in the hospital. Max is supposed to see his mother everyday to make sure she is okay, and today he brought Vincent with him and she seemed to like Vincent more than she even likes Max. Max seemed like he wanted to leave so much that he stole Vincent's "Mystery Briefcase" and throws it off a bridge.

As it gets later that night, Vincent tells Max to go into a building looking for a man named Phoenix to get a chip to a laptop to find out who this one person is. Before he goes in, Vincent tells Max to say that he is Vincent because he said that he would meet Phoenix and Vince didn't want to go in there. When he gets the chip he goes off to a dance club to look for the man named Peter, which turns into a shooting spree.

Once Max gets so mad at Vincent that he crashes the cab and flips and gets very damaged while they are still in it. And as the cops come they find out that the body to the man who "fell" out of the window was in the truck and the cops start to get mad at Max and try to handcuff him. While this was happening Vincent had already ran away hoping he wouldn't get killed and going off to kill Annie. (while Vincent was in the cab, he was complaining because Max got Annie's phone number and never called her, and also said that "our lives are too short, who knows...she might be gone the next day..."wink

As Vincent is going after Annie Max finally calls her to tell her that Vincent is after her. As Max tries to save Annie Vincent is off to find her and is only 2 floors under her...what kind of twist could Vincent leave in his steps?

Pros:
This movie had an ending full of Twists and turns (in my oppinion). Tom played his role as Vincent like in his other movies like Mission Impossible. Jamie Foxx, I always thought was a comedian and he proved me wrong by making himself worthy of a Dramatic Role which he played great!

Cons:
They made the movie a little strached out and put more stuff in there than was needed. They could also have added more action to make it look as good as the trailer made it look.

The Bottom Line:
Collateral was a great movie that anyone who is in for a thriller would enjoy!

Rating:

**** out of ****

4 stars out of 4 stars

Cinemaddiction
Well, no need for anyone to go see it, considering you just spoiled the entire thing. roll eyes (sarcastic)

theone0103
not the entire thing

Cinemaddiction
You may as well have, given you gave the movie away all the way through the final 10 minutes on the Metro. I don't care, personally, since I already reviewed it, the way it should be done..

BadKitty
I added spoiler tags for theone0103

Stormy Day
theones starting to bug me sad

theone0103
why do you think that^^

theone0103
i might have spoiled a little at the end of the review but i told the story maybe i could have entered spoiler tags like when vincent was in the building right under annie and stuff like that, but come on things happen! mad mad mad mad

botankus
I'll take "theone0103" anyday over that user "Freddy's Lover."

That guy PM'd me to ask me to leave him alone (in all caps) and all I did was told him in a thread that his rude postings were immature and unfunny.


I'll bet he is Freddy's Lover. Not Freddy Krueger, but some guy at his middle school or something.

theone0103
What the f**k?

Cinemaddiction
It's almost too easy to review a movie.

Plot out the synopsis, introduce the main characters, exploit the main conflict without spoiling the story, weigh the pros and cons, then wrap it up with a concise, closing paragraph with which you either sell or bunk the movie.

theone0103
hey, im only 12 whayt do you expect..in not Roger Ebert yet!

Cinemaddiction
How did you get into a R rated movie..lol. I'm not expecting anything out of you, my man. But if you're going to try and review a movie, just say what the movie was about, what you liked, what you disliked and that's all.

Your heart's in the right place.

theone0103
Parents yes

Stormy Day
Just reported to mods you will be banned soon

Im 13 and got into Harold and Kumar.Snuck in shifty

theone0103
what??? i will be banned soon??

Cinemaddiction
I loathe you.

Stormy Day
Um...thanks?

Theone0103,yes.

cal31
This was the best movie of the summer, plain and simple.

forumcrew
had too many holes in it for me to say its the best, but it was definantly pretty good.. jammie foxx had a great performance

cal31
Cruise was just kick ass in it, taking down that whole night club was awesome.

cal31
What holes did it have?

hezzy_baby
i wanna see it cuz jamie foxx yes

MissesDepp?!
just saw it today, agreed with cine.

recommended.

SpiderGurl
Right on. Cruise was absolutely convincing in this role. Like I've said in other threads, I can tell what is good acting when I totally forget the actor behind the character, and that's exactly how I felt during this film-- I only saw "Vincent," and totally forgot that it was Cruise behind the character. Plus, he weilds a gun like a pro.

roundisfunny
I saw it Friday night, and got the feeling they took it out of the oven about 20 minutes too early. It's as though the script writers thought they had until Thursday to finish it, but their professor said Tuesday, and they hurriedly tacked on an ending so they could turn it in for full credit.

I thought it was EXTREMELY hokey that Annie just HAPPENED to be Vincent's fifth victim. From that point, it was as though we were suddenly back in the late 80's/early 90's (the peak of unbelievably over-the-top action movies) watching what marginal realism the plot had unravel into utter fantasy.

Lianslo
I thought this movie was decent. It got pretty monotinous in the middle, but the ending was pretty exciting...very predictable, but still suspensful. So, for me...it wasn't a waste of money...i enjoyed it, even if it wasn't my fave.

manchichirtchit
just saw it last night. i have to say it was worth it. the performance of cruise was kick a$$ as expected. his character, vincent, was a stone face killer without qualms with his proffesion. he's hired, he gets the job done. no details, just specifics.

i thought foxx coulda done a better job of portraying max... or it could just be the way the character was presented through out the movie, but convincing none-the-less.

the only thing that i found quite "disturbung" is the fact that vincent didn't even graze max. his marksmanship is unbelievable accurate, they shoulda made one bullet hit max at least in his arm or shoulder. i could see hpw he missed int he room though. dark, a lot of glass doors,a lot of shadows and reflections.

i thouroughly enjoyed cruise's and foxx's exchanges in the cabs. and the club fever scene was the best scene in my opinion. all in all i give it 7 1/2 out of 10.

Spitback
great film

<<Solo>>
Didn't expect much didn't like it, Don't like Cruise. A better movie to see is Alien Vs. Predator best movie of the year by far.

Spitback
Good movie it was really intense.

cal31
if you think avp is the best movie of the year, you have no sense of movies at all.

BOPRecruit 16
I would give Collateral 3 out of 5 stars for the story wasn't very strong nor well balanced.

botankus
I saw this on Saturday night, and I thought it was above average for the most part. I didn't like the night club scene, and I won't go into the countless number of movies out there with shooting scenes in nightclubs where the patrons are still running around several minutes into the shooting. And it's not like there was a huge mob trying to get out the front door because the main characters get out pretty quick as well.

Anyways, another reason I saw this was that the film selection at the local theater was atrocious. The only other options were:

1) Some junk about people cooking out on a grill for 2 hours
2) The sequel to Anaconda. 'Nuff said.
3) Princess Diaries 2. I do not share Stormy's taste in movies, sorry.
4) Wicker Park. I didn't know anything about this when we showed up for the theater, but one look at the movie poster was all I needed.
5) Paparazzi. NO.
6) Yu-gi-oh!. No offense to any big fans of this movie, but this looked like a film too immature for 5 year olds.
7) Hero. I do not like martial arts movies in the least bit.
8) Exorcist prequel. This will be a video pick, no more.
9) AvP. I have already said this is a pass

So as you can see Collateral was the obvious choice.

Thirst
i personally thought the movie was good. Foxx finally got a serious role in which he did an excellent job, Cruise played good as a hitman and his first role as a villain, and the plot was good.

Myth
Sorry for starting a new topic, but I figured if I didn't make a new one, that nobody would read a buried post this much after the release of the movie. Anyway:

I don't know why this movie got such good reviews. To me, all I saw was crap from beginning to end. Its been a while since watching it but lets see if I can recall several of the negatives. First of all, the camera. This, I admit, is just a preference. I felt like I was getting sick with all of the shaking around. People see it as unique, I see it as cheap. I felt like I could have filmed the movie with my parents cam-corder that they bought in 1992. Its one thing to use a camera that is not mounted still, but I got the impression that they just shook the camera. In the cab, the camera bounced around so much, and Jamie Foxx/Tom Cruise didn't bounce even the slightest. Before I forget, I also want to point out that the whole movie had no traffic on their side of the road but tons of cars on the other side. Anyway, Collateral seems to have one of the biggest plot holes I've ever seen in a movie. The cops are outside the nightclub and zoom in and listen to Jamie Foxx say that his name is "Vincent" to the security guards. The cops immediately jump to the conclusion that he must be the killer because his name is Vincent. They said, "It must be him, he even admitted that his name is Vincent." OH MY GOD! VINCENT!?! That must mean he is the killer even though the cops never once prior to that scene even hinted that they were after a man named Vincent. Apparently, if you are investigating a murder, and a man named Vincent shows up, he must be a killer because he "even admitted his name was Vincent." A friend of mine protested this and said, "Well, Vincent is a pretty good assassin so once they heard the name, it must have clicked and they linked the assissin to the murders." Even if that is the case, it was never even implied that they knew of a man named Vincent who was a killer (which is just bad film making). It was simply, 'his name is Vincent, he must be the killer.' Moving on from that... A couple of scenes show a lack of logic within the characters themselves. 3 Examples: 1- Jamie Foxx: He takes off with Vincent's suit case while Vincent is with his mother. If Jamie were to completely get away, screwing Vincent over, all Vincent would have to do is go back to his mother and kill her, or at the very least, wait for Jamie to visit her again. Jamie Foxx assumes that Vincent is not going to harm his mother, but only an ideot would risk something like that. 2- Cop who comes across Jamie and flipped car: This one was more funny than bad. Jamie flips the cop over and holds the cops gun to him. The cop, rather than a normal human saying, "Please, don't shoot me," barks an order at Jamie as if he is still in control, "SIR! PUT DOWN THE GUN!" I just laughed. 3-Vincent: At the end he knocks out the electricity because the girl is on the phone. There is no reason for him to do this. He cuts out the phone because she is using it to talk to Jamie Foxx. However, Vince has no reason to believe that Jamie Foxx knows the girl, or even a reason to believe that it is Jamie on the other end of the line. If anything, cutting the power to that floor, would draw attention to himself. Maintance would see that there is a problem on that floor and would send somebody up. Another problem with the movie is how predictable it was. Any ideot could have seen from the beginning that Vincent was going to go after the girl that Jamie gets sweet on (hell, I saw since the commercials). If you didn't realize that she was going to be the last target in the beginning, it spells it out for you in the middle. Vince talks about how he goes after anyone from witnesses to "prosecuters" at times (if that wasn't the biggest hint in the world). The coincidences were way to big as well. One big thing happening by chance is kind of neat, but when everything is coincidental, its just ridiculouse. First, he meets the girl that Vincent is going to go after right before meeting Vincent. Then Vincent tells a story about a dead man on a train which is how he dies. Then there is more subtle coincidences such as the cops arriving to the night club at the same time as Jamie and Vincent. The action scenes were not as good as people make them out to be as well. I'll admit that the kick that breaks the guys knee was cool but for most of the fighting, the camera was everywhere and it was filmed with too many bodies around the camera, so that you couldn't actually see what was being done. At one time, Vincent jumpst on one man and dives out of the way of machine gun fire (which killed the man that he rolled away from). The man with the machine gun apparently decides that he isn't going to change his aim and waits approximately 3 seconds for Vincent to grab a gun of his own and shoot back. Vincent dives out of the way, and in about 4 motions (which is not fast), grabs a guns turns and fires while the machine gunner stands dumbfounded waiting to be shot. There was many many more flaws and annoyances in this movie as well, but I just can't seem to recall them all because there was simply just way too many. The drama genre is the hardest to **** up generally other than simply being to slow (example: Serpico), but Collateral finds a way to do it in its own ridiculous way. By the way, the storyline of "Drive me around as a kill people" is pretty weak as well.

3 out of 10 (one of my least favorites of the year)

<<Solo>>
Yeah, I already reviewed it with as much hate as possible.

cal31
1. Great performance by Jamie Foxx
2. Great performance by Tom Cruise
3. The look of the film
4. Watching Tom Cruise take down 10 guys in a night club with a hand gun and his foot.

Myth
1-2) I'll give you that they had pretty good performances
3) That is a preference, one that really bugged me
4) You couldn't tell what he was doing half the time in those fights and a guy stood there with his machine gun and waited for Tom Cruise to grab a gun, roll over, position himself to fire, and then actually fire (about 3 seconds). He should have died there unless the guy was to busy having a seizure to change his aim of his machine gun.

Overall, the acting in the movie was the only positive at all in my mind. However, you are entitled to your opinion as I am just stating mine.

Myth
Where? I'd like to read that but couldn't find it through the search.

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