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Written by Stuart Beattie; directed by Michael Mann; starring Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise. Released to DVD on December 14, 2004. The supreme majority of action films are inherently gratuitous. Nothing that has ever happened to Steven Seagal on the big screen will ever happen to you or to me. When I go into a convenience store late at night, I am never attacked, beaten or forced to deal with large men pointing automatic weapons at me (nor do I ever buy Mountain Dew). Yes, directors could take the time to instill more real life moments into their action films, but they rarely do, choosing instead to include more scenes set in strip clubs or of Nicolas Cage or Ben Affleck protesting their innocence. Michael Mann is one director who eschews the loud explosions, shallow characters and quick cuts that are present in so many other action films. Employing precious few of the conventions so prevalent in Pepsi commercials, Collateral is vintage Mann: smooth, poignant and exhilarating in both its beauty and savagery. Jamie Foxx stars in Collateral as Max Durocher, a veteran cab driver in Los Angeles. Hired by the dapper, articulate and singularly named Vincent (Tom Cruise), Durocher’s night quickly becomes a living hell when he learns that Vincent is a hitman who wants Durocher to drive him around for the night. Mann has made a career out of supremely taut cat-and-mouse chase films. From Thief to Heat to The Last of the Mohicans, Mann has proved time and again that he knows how to write films that don’t only sparkle with a crisp energy and sense of purpose but that also engage the audience without ever seeming desperate or forced. Part of the reason that Mann succeeds in this endeavor is because neither his characters nor his narratives adhere to formula.
chris neumer yes, it's true: Producer/director Michael Mann created Miami Vice. |
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