Collateral
starring Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith, Mark Ruffalo, Peter Berg and Bruce McGill
written by Stuart Beattie
directed by Michael Mann
I had heard a lot about this movie and was looking forward to seeing it. But I was disappointed. Tom Cruise plays a hit man, Vincent. He visits Los Angeles to fill a contract of five targets. He gets in Max’s taxicab (Jamie Foxx) and has the cabbie drive him around one night to all of his hits. It’s an interesting premise. But I think its value is somewhat diminished when the writer has Vincent sitting in the back of the cab waxing philosophic with Max about his job, talking about the I Ching and Freud, Charles Darwin and the flow of the universe. It just becomes silly. Tom Cruise looks really cool. He’s not the kind of killer to talk to his victims before killing them, revealing the plot to them before they die. He’s more professional than that and just gets on with the cold violence of it. That’s one good thing about the movie, anyway. But I began to lose interest when Vincent orders Max to visit his mother in the hospital, arguing that failure to do so would attract unwanted attention to the both of them. Then he accompanies Max into the hospital and buys flowers for her, too. I’m sure that even hit men love their mommas. But do they love other people’s mommas as well?