Collateral - Single Disc Edition [DVD]

Worth watching if you can get it free.

Well-written and produced. The pacing was a masterpiece.

If any of you have ever played the  Hitman  video games you will probably think that you could do quite well as contract killer given the right tools. You'd probably be right, or at least you'd be a hundred times better than Vincent in this movie. Apparently the phrase "silent assassin" is not in his vocabulary. He doesn't even use silencers on his very loud gun.Tom Cruise plays Vincent - a thoroughly conspicuous looking character who is in LA for a spot of contract killing. He hires unhappy cabbie Max (Jamie Foxx) for the whole night. Five stops, five kills - all in a night's work.This arrangement might have worked if Vincent were competent in the least. But he's just terrible. He leaves evidence everywhere, makes moronic mistakes, walks in front of every CCTV camera in LA, leaves fingerprints everywhere, and blabs far too much to Max, who any half-competent assassin would off at the end of the night anyway. Whatever the bad guys are paying him, the paycheck far exceeds the skill. I know the face and name need to sell the movie, but surely you'd remember a suspicious guy who looked like Tom Cruise being at the scene of every murder in LA during the course of one night.Michael Mann directs the film with amazing skill, brilliantly capturing the multiple looks and feelings of night-time LA. There are many scenes of tangible atmosphere in Collateral, so much so that the film is eerily calming. Using a combination of digital cameras for the car scenes and 35mm (Super35 sadly, not anamorphic) for the interiors there are many gorgeous shots and stunning compositions.Cruise and Foxx have great chemistry together though it must be said that Foxx comes off as the better performer/character. Neither of them overact and keep their cool but there's a true realistic edge to his lonely cabbie than Cruise's idiot assassin who leaves incriminating exhibits A-Z all over LA.Look out for a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo from the Transporter himself right at the very start.The Blu-ray is in gorgeous looking 2.35:1 1080p with colors so vivid and lifelike you'll forget your watching a movie and not real life. The DTS HD-MA soundtrack is also stunning, fully complimenting the movie's dynamic sound design. Gunshots and very loud and pack a heavy punch, if you have a home theatre you'll love it. James Newton Howard's atmospheric score is also seamlessly woven into the film's sound design and it's surely Howard at the top of his game, miraculously blending his own score with non-original tracks. Seriously, if you have a home theatre you'll LOVE the Fever Club scene.

Collateral is one of Michael Mann's best films from a superb back catalogue which includes the likes of Thief, Manhunter, The Last of the Mohicans, and of course, Heat. The plot centres around Max - a likeable but 'play it safe' cab driver played superbly by Jamie Foxx - and his life-changing encounter with Tom Cruise's silver fox assassin Vincent, who has arrived in LA to carry out a series of contract killings throughout the course of one night.Max offers Vincent a ride in his cab, unaware of Vincent's true intentions, and it's their clash of personalities that glues the film together as Max unwittingly becomes Vincent's 'mission of death' chauffeur.Jamie Foxx does a fantastic job of portraiting a decent but weak-minded man whose outlook on life is changed forever by the encounter, and Cruise is very effective as the slick, charming, but thoroughly unpleasant killer.However, the real star of the show is the city of LA.There aren't many directors out there who can capture the 'feel' of a big city as effectively as Michael Mann, and he does not disappoint here. The visual shots of LA at night are stunning and truly memorable. Overall, there is a lot to enjoy here, and it's a film that still feels fresh after repeated viewings. Highly recommended.

Occasionally, a film comes along with all the qualities of a masterpiece: a superb and original script that just could not go wrong in the hands of a gifted director, who has never made anything below par; a great cast who lovingly live the characters in their exceptional performances; outstanding cinematography; a terrific and haunting music score and crisp editing; and a film, not too short, not too long; and finally, critics adore it and audiences love it. That then is a masterpiece, and `Collateral' without any doubt is one, that I recommend to everyone as a 'film to see before you die' as the famous Film4 ad goes.One characteristics of Michael Mann's work is his unique portrayal of LA night: the roads, the traffic, the buildings and the night sky in particular; as he did in `Heat' and has revisited in `Collateral`. It is depicted almost as a character in his films, and here in Collateral, there are unique sequences in which aerial shots meanderingly focus on the moving taxi in which the two main characters move from one target to the next, with helicopters hovering in the background. And for a few seconds, the moving cab looks almost sailing through the night. I have never seen this technique before. One of the most memorable sequences in the film is the one where a fox crosses the street in front of the deeply thoughtful two protagonists. It is unlikely that I will ever forget that sequence.`Collateral' is likely to remain in our collective memory as a great film and a true masterpiece by one of the greatest directors of our time.BrownPolar31st August 2006