Collateral: Review By TheStonedReviewer

Jamie Foxx plays Max, the 'temporary' nightshift taxi driver with not much more in his life than a photo of a tropical island paradise and a few plans of his dream business. This much is revealed to us when he picks up his first passenger Annie, a U.S Justice Department prosecutor. His second passenger, Vincent (Tom Cruise) will turn Max's quiet routine on its head and change his life forever in a thrilling night of shooting, killing and running.

Collateral is an incredibly tense and gritty thrill ride from beginning to end thanks to the 2 guys on the poster. Tom Cruise is great as the badass hitman, he's scruffier and although tries to understand Max's emotions by buying flowers for his mother and encouraging him to call Annie he really has very little empathy for anyone and zero true emotion. Although we could all learn something from his take on life. But although Tom Cruise is great, Jamie Foxx is incredible and gives the role of a lifetime. A very believable character and a character that is very believable in this situation. Foxx feels no need to become the action man in all this, he knows his limitations as ordinary Cab driver Maxx and although Cruise turns slightly Mission Impossible towards the end Foxx stays perfectly intones with the film.

Collateral answers the question, what would it be like to stick an ordinary man with zero action skills in a film with a sociopathic action man Tom Cruise? Well the answer is it would be an incredibly thrilling experience and at no point dull, like so many Hollywood action films where the average people turn out to be super insanely skilled action characters. In this, even towards the end, we see Max barely even knows how to hold a gun which makes the ride so tense. Can Max do it? Can he save anyone? He's just a normal bloke up against Tom Cruise, how is he even going to survive the night!???

Collateral is a great thriller and at 120 minutes never feels too long; the main 2 guys give off great performances, although Mark Ruffalo is as well very enjoyable. Michael Mann should be very proud of his work.