Cinema Review 'Collateral' (From Penarth Times)

Cinema Review 'Collateral'

CONSCIENTIOUS taxi driver Max (Jamie Foxx), knows Los Angeles like the back of his hand. He keeps his taxi clean and goes about his boring job with good grace. But then he doesn't envisage doing it forever. He dreams of owning a limousine company but time is passing him by because of his own inertia. On this particular night he picks up beautiful lawyer Annie (Jada Pinkett Smith). Over the ride they have a friendly conversation that ends up mildly flirtatious. He learns she gets nervous before a court appearance and is going to the office to gen up on her forthcoming case. Before parting he gives her his favourite postcard of a tranquil island. He says just looking at it will calm her down. She reciprocates with her business card, just in case he needs a lawyer. In another part of town an immaculately turned out man with silver hair and a silver suit arrives at the airport and surreptitiously swaps briefcases with another man. He then gets into Max's taxi saying his name is Vincent (Tom Cruise), and offers him $600 if he will drive him to five destinations around town. At the first stop he tells Max to park around the back and wait for him. While Max is tucking into a sandwich a body lands smack bang on the roof of his taxi. Almost immediately Vincent arrives and it dawns on Max that he is a hired assassin. Although terrified, he realises he is unavoidably in too deep to do a runner. Cruise naturally heads the cast but the film belongs to Foxx who is mesmerising. He takes the modest taxi driver through a roller coaster of emotions from big dreamer until he ends up focused and driven. It's a multi-layered performance and now I am greatly looking forward to seeing him in his next role, portraying Ray Charles. To his credit Cruise never takes centre stage, which would have been all too easy. He plays the sarcastically humorous Vincent without expression but still manages to give an interesting and compelling performance. My knowledge of assassins is nil but I would have thought a guy that blended into the crowd would be the business. This killer is no regular Joe, he stands out like a neatly manicured lawn surrounded by a meadow of weeds. Apart from that, it's 30 minutes too long and extremely difficult to understand what they are saying due to poor sound editing. It lacks the suspense of the director's psychological film Manhunter and the intrigue he conveyed with The Insider, but this clever contemporary thriller is more a character study and that it achieves in spades.

7/10