Collateral

Review by Clint Morris

Tom Cruise can have his pick of the litter when it comes to co-stars, so it comes as quite a surprise to see him sharing the screen with a guy whose last two films have gone straight to video.

Though quite a capable actor - we've witnessed this with his role as a go-getting football player in Oliver Stone's underrated Any Given Sunday (1999) - Jamie Foxx is no Dustin Hoffman, no Paul Newman… heck, he's probably not even in the same grouping as Bryan Brown.

Having Foxx share an equal amount of screen time and a marquee with the Top Gun shows that the box-office megastar is open to all possibilities though, and obviously - Cruise being quite happy to share a co-starring credit line with the comic turner actor - he's far from the ego-maniac a lot of his peers seem to be.

So what is Jamie Foxx doing in Collateral? In a word: lots.

He belongs in it. He makes the role his own. While original choice Adam Sandler would've been interesting, Foxx seems to embody the elements of your everyday man - he's the common Joe with the bare bank-balance, non-existent social life and dreary day job a lot of us are.

Obviously, director Michael Mann saw the possibilities in Foxx, where no one else would've, and jumped at the chance to give him the kind of meaty role he deserves.

And with Cruise - electrifying as hell, playing wholly against-type - sharing the screen, the double-act seems to help make the film play even better than it is. This is as much Foxx's movie as it is Cruise's and at the end of the day you won't know how to clap more for.

Cruise plays his first fully-fledged villain, a grey-haired, grey-suit wearing contract killer who forces Foxx's taxi-driver to escort him around all night.

On his first stop, Max (Foxx), a lowly L.A native with much larger aspirations than driving cabs all his life, discovers that Vincent (Cruise) is a murderer and the cab's essentially chauffeuring him around to the homes of each guy Mr. Bad's been paid to kill.

Before he can make a run for it though, Max is forced at gunpoint to continue on the journey, of which he'll be paid a measly $600 bucks by the way.

Thrilling as hell, with a script that's typically Mann-slick (though a little too much like his earlier film Heat at times, especially the way he's structured both good guy and bad guy to come together, showing obvious sympathy for their singular plights), a mesmerising jazz soundtrack and two rock-hard performances, Collateral could be just the coolest film of the year.

Sure to be a favourite for action thriller lovers for a number of years.

4 out of 5

Collateral
Australian release: Thursday October 14th
Cast: Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Mark Ruffalo, Peter Berg, Bruce McGill.
Director: Michael Mann.
Website: Click here.

Brought to you by MovieHole