Collateral (Two-Disc Special Edition)
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Jada Pinkett Smith, Jamie Foxx, Mark Ruffalo, Peter Berg, Tom CruiseBrand: Paramount
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 2.40:1
Running Time: 120 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-12-14
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Dreamworks Video
Movie Reviews of Collateral (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Movie Review: Another great "Carpe Diem" Movie
Summary: 5 Stars
Since the very start, Mann takes his time to develop depth in this movie's characters. Spending valuable plenty "Hollywood minutes" from the onset, to allow Jada - THE hyper sexy professional prototype and Max -the hero cabdriver of this flick-, to show their chemistry surfacing through sharp dialogs, gives you the feeling you're not for the conventional thriller plotline/ride.
And this movie is a about that. The adrenaline rush, the violence, the cool steely demeanor, hired killer - philosophy, are props -aside from highly entertaining. The peek into the murderer's killings & mind, the steely aesthetics, the beautiful "smelly" portrait of a rough L.A., are just supportive of the central human theme.
This movie is about a very common & contemporary human struggle. Some may say the
most important issue. Max is a blue collar worker with a dream. That dream keeps his child spirit alive, and that of most of us striving in the middle. There is a twist in his perspective: He's not selling his blood for a company. He's sacrificing his current life to fulfill a dream, of owning a limo service with a unique vision. He also dreams of island far away, that he keeps a picture of on the cab of.
But conflicting with that is a man with basic needs and fears thereof. He has bills to pay and people depending on him (his mother). In twelve years driving a cab he has not been capable of "taking the dive", risking his security to pursue his dream.
That dysfunctional fear that naturally lingers in all of us, extends to other areas of his personal life. He is incapable of risking emotionally, either.
Doing things in which he cannot control the outcome, and pain is at stake.
And he knows it. Especially evident in the intro segment with Jada, when he's pain and shame are reflected in his face, when he's unable to ask the lady for a second contact, after he knew clearly they hit it off. He sees her walking away from him, and aches.
He's inertia is leading him to suffering, anyway.
Fox, conveys all that with a few expressions. Masterful performance, all the way.
Cruise (Vincent) is the devil and also bizarre angel, in his shoulder. When Vincent's identity is settled for Max, is clear his life is the antithesis of Vincent's. Vincent lives a life of danger and risks. No chance to hesitate or blunder. His payoff is much about for
those risks he takes.
Here Cruise doesn't stick to your head, a much underplayed solid work, where you don't feel as watching someone act.
During the "ride" with the devil, Vincent taunts Max's with his evident self- deceit. Vincent confronts him with a painful outlook. The future we all dread. A future in which we find ourselves old one day burying the young illusions, with no chance of changing our lives, and dying with remorse for the dead dreams.
That becomes the salt in the wound he needs to awake from his stupor.
Vincent and Max, as in other good guy - bad guy centered screenplays, are similar guys.
Vincent's cool, roll with the punches- improvise on the spot-high level mercenary behavior seem appropriate with his taste of music. One with the appropriate tone: Jazz.
A beautiful, masterfully written and directed piece at a Jazz club, lets us know a side of a cultured Vincent, who knows about Jazz history and understands the craft. He praises the improvisation quality. You can sense his love for it.
By the same token, and complemented with Vincent's depiction of his sad childhood, you can suppose that a man with such sensitivity could have a different life. Just as Max.
And deep inside, he knows it. He despises what he does. Although full of satisfying (for him) rationalizations for his actions, that he blurts to -of all people- the cab driver, that entertains us fully during the film. Ethically shallow, but sufficient to appease superficially a man whose life is also shallow.
Both characters seem oppressed by their circumstances, fears and past. But at the end are paying the price for not exercising their possibility to choose a different path.
Both are escaping reality in very different ways.
Beyond his urgency for someone to take blame of the crimes and his need to focus on the jobs to perform, there are other reasons to stick with Max. Besides, not showing his face, he shows reasons beyond that for keeping Max, especially when Max starts to show as a liability for the "project". Furthermore, Max's life been a pseudo-living, breathing justification for Vincent's exhilarating line of work, there is a connection that Vincent wants to keep. One of those, the fact that those hourly connections are the only relations he has with other people.
The movie is the awakening of a man. That change hints the promise of a new life. In this ride, not taking risks is not an option. Not, if wants to protect the same security he cherishes. It's a change or die deal. That awakening is also catalyzed by pride. He won't sink lower. He won't betray another value, especially not his romantic values. On top of that he had a night's example of another male, who does whatever is needed to get what he wants.
And finally he acts in 360 degree angle from his regular life.
The ending, which is the only "traditional Hollywood" segment that indulges the audience with a happy closure, has been criticized a lot.
I believe that although it insinuates Max's life is going to dramatically improve, you're not left with the certainty.
And it surely reminds us, the flavor of irony we extract from our own life's events. Arranged like a puzzle only by the protagonist of each life. With logic that resembles that in Jazz. And Mann, as a great composer, leaves you with a feeling that this ending had the beautiful consistency of that logic.
Not everything in the plot original: Yes. Much better played than many other films: Yes
Summary of Collateral (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Vincent is a cool calculating contract killer at the top of his game. Max is a cabbie with big dreams looking for his next fare. This fateful night max will transport vincent on his next mission - one night 5 stops 5 hits & a perfect getaway. Together they find themselves in a non-stop race against time. Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 08/22/2006 Starring: Tom Cruise Jada Picket Smith Run time: 120 minutes Rating: RCollateral offers a change of pace for Tom Cruise as a ruthless contract killer, but that's just one of many reasons to recommend this well-crafted thriller. It's from Michael Mann, after all, and the director's stellar track record with crime thrillers (Thief, Manhunter, and especially Heat) guarantees a rich combination of intelligent plotting, well-drawn characters, and escalating tension, beginning here when icy hit-man Vincent (Cruise) recruits cab driver Max (Jamie Foxx) to drive him through a nocturnal tour of Los Angeles, during which he will execute five people in a 10-hour spree. While Stuart Beattie's screenplay deftly combines intimate character study with raw bursts of action (in keeping with Mann's directorial trademark), Foxx does the best work of his career to date (between his excellent performance in Ali and his title-role showcase in Ray), and Cruise is fiercely convincing as an ultra-disciplined sociopath. Jada Pinkett-Smith rises above the limitations of a supporting role, and Mann directs with the confidence of a master, turning L.A. into a third major character (much as it was in the Mann-produced TV series Robbery Homicide Division). Collateral is a bit slow at first, but as it develops subtle themes of elusive dreams and lives on the edge, it shifts into overdrive and races, with breathtaking precision, toward a nail-biting climax. --Jeff Shannon
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