Getting Ready for the Big Ride

Collateral takes us on a wild trip through Los Angeles- and the darker side of human nature.

by Michael Sean McGowan

The Upside: Mature, engaging thriller from director Michael Mann (from him, would you expect anything else?).

The Downside: Kind of falls apart in the last 20 minutes.

    I believe that there are people like Vincent in the world.  I'm not talking about contract killers, rather I'm talking about amoral sociopaths who not only can justify the havoc they wreak with the world, but do so in such a pithy, self-involved manner that they convince themselves that it's the rest of the world that is off kilter and they are the few sane voices in the asylum.  I remember watching Ken Lay's declaration that he had done nothing wrong; reading in horror as Martha Steward compared herself to Nelson Mandela.  I believe them- at least I believe that they believe these absurd constructions.  How could anyone go through life acting on them and not?

     There's a scene in Collateral where Vincent, a polished hit-man who is on a one-night killing spree in Los Angeles, explains his rationale to Max, a mild-mannered cabbie he has taken hostage.  Apparently, Vincent sees his work as a labor of cosmic unimportance.  Six billion people in the world.  Thousands die everyday.  Governments slaughter their people by the village-full.  No one does anything about this, what right do they have to judge him?  How important are the deaths of five people in the grand scheme of things?  It sounds like hip-boot wading stuff, but I'm convinced that Vincent has truly reduced himself and world down on a scale so small that anything he does he does with impunity because it is so irrelevant.  But... following this logic, Vincent himself is completely inconsequential- a fact that Max will turn on him at one point during the movie.

    By and large, Collateral plays out like a character study of two men, such polar opposites that you'd expect to see electrical discharges fire off between them.  In a lesser movie, one of these men would see a little of himself in the other and they would drift close to being friends before some tragic ending.  Not here.  Both men have agendas and are sticking to them.  Vincent wants Max to drive him through the city so he can finish his rounds.  Max just wants to survive.  Neither are willing to give an inch.

    Collateral's ball doesn't start rolling until an unexpected delay into the film, at least unexpected by thriller standards.  We meet Max as he tackles his job of chauffeuring people to and fro around the City of Angels.  Almost apologetically, he tells people that this job is only "temporary," he's looking to start a high-class limo service.  It's his goal.  It's his dream.  The fact that he's been at this temporary job for twelve years tells us something about what becomes of most of our dreams.  He picks up a fare, an attractive district attorney (Jada Pinkett Smith) who is on the eve of a large trial.  What's significant here is that these extended scenes aren't loaded with the stock dialogue that's meant to display sexual tension in the shortest time possible.  They bicker over the best way to get downtown (Max, almost a AAA guidebook on legs, is right) and she tells him she always cries the night before her cases begin.  She gives him her card and a not-so-subtle reminder to call him.

    This is when Vincent shows up. 

    Collateral could have been a routine chase movie.  It could have involved shoot-outs and car chases (it actually does involve these things, but doesn't exist on their behalf).  Stuart Beattie's screenplay is far too involved for this; it's almost set up like a science experiment to put two incompatible personalities together and watch the conditions around them deteriorate.  Vincent finds a lot to ridicule Max about.  His passive personality.  His procrastination (why hasn't he tried setting up that limo business?).  But as the night wears on, Vincent's cockiness, his everything-else-be-damned approach to life is going to rub off in the slightest of ways on Max.

    Director Michael Mann has created a resume as impressive as any; Manhunter, Last of the Mohicans, The Insider, and Heat.  I didn't care that much for his last film, Ali, which felt confused and disjointed but then, I'd say, most bio-pics do.  Collateral shares a great deal in common with Heat.  Both are about men on opposite sides of the law, stoic in their convictions and their desire to outlive the other.  Both almost lend a mythological quality to LA nightlife (the cinematography by Paul Cameron and Dion Beebe is a work of art).  Not that Collateral is on the same level as Heat.  That was an epic about cops and robbers waging war on the streets of the big city.  This film is more condensed, claustrophobic, and, at times, a little more conventional.  It holds true to its character-driven leanings until about the last twenty minutes when it turns into a chase through a downtown subway that looks absurdly empty and onto a subway train which is almost empty and those people who are on board seem indifferent to the large-scale gunplay that happens before their eyes.

    There's no doubt that Collateral is banking itself on Tom Cruise, which isn't a particularly risky bet.  While Cruise hasn't been what you would call an "experimental" performer, he has tried a few out-of-the-box roles.  Some work, like in Magnolia.  Many others don't because we're always strangely reminded that we are not watching a character, rather we're watching Tom Cruise play a character.  It works here.  In his silk-gray lounge-act suit, hair and stubble peppered with silver dashes (he almost looks like an aged wolfman), Cruise manages to plug his almost immature cockiness perfectly into Vincent's inherent sadism, turning him into a spoiled brat with a silencer.  Foxx, though, is the stand-out.  From this and the previews I've seen of his turn as Ray Charles in an upcoming bio, Foxx comes off as a talented, nuanced actor.  It's fascinating to watching him evolve from being a doormat to conniving to pull the rug right out from Vincent's feet.

    As good as Collateral is, it isn't great.  It's weighted down a little by a well-done but superfluous sub-plot about a pair of cops (Mark Ruffalo and Peter Berg) following Vincent's trail of bodies.  And then the ending; well, I've already treaded that ground so I won't any more, although I did like the nice throw-away reference to Rear Window.

    Collateral is a violent film, but unlike most summer movies, it's violence doesn't exist to entertain the audience.  Most often it lashes out from beneath the surface like a viper and leaves us stunned and a little off-balance.  Try finding too many other movies that do this- that not only explore the mechanics of taking a life, but its rationale and consequences, too.  Find a movie that explores why people do the things they do rather than just assuming it for the screenplay's sake.  I'd imagine it would be a pretty lonely search, like trying to hail a cab on an LA night.  B+

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