As a killer, Cruise a hit

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about Collateral, Michael Mann’s new thriller with Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise, is that it could have been even better.

For the first three-quarters of the film, it is like a B movie — taut and always surprising. But the denouement is a little disappointing and bears more of a resemblance to the first two Terminator movies, at least in spirit.

Despite that, the movie’s still very good.

Foxx plays Max Durocher, a proud L.A. cabbie who dreams of one day owning his own full-service limo company. Whenever things get a little rough, Max takes five and stares at a picture of a desert island he has hanging on his overhead.

Enter Vincent (Cruise), a well-dressed businessman who wants to hire Max for the night as he cruises around L.A., saying hi to friends. Although it’s against the regulations to hire a cab, Vincent seems harmless enough and Max agrees.

Unfortunately, not only is Vincent not harmless, he’s a ruthless hit man and his so-called "appointments" are of a purely professional nature. Max becomes a virtual hostage in his own cab as Vincent takes him along on his errands of death.

Perhaps the most appealing thing about Collateral is the promise of two well-known actors playing against type. Cruise has played unlikable characters before, and he did show his fangs in Interview With a Vampire, but this is his first out-and-out villain. The actor pulls it off with menacing grace. Maybe it’s his intensity or the way he carries himself, but it’s not that hard to believe Cruise as a hit man.

Perhaps more remarkable is how Foxx comes off. Although he, too, has done drama, Collateral calls on Foxx to be subtle. Here, he is the Hitchcockian "ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances," and he rises to the challenge with an outstanding performance.

With its foreboding cityscapes and effective use of popular music, the movie is about as close as we’ll ever get to a big-screen version of Miami Vice, which Mann produced back in the 1980s.

In some ways, Collateral is a thinking person’s summer movie: It is full of twists and turns and surprises. And when the action turns up a notch, it’s not arbitrary. Just about everything that happens is organic within the story.

Mann and his crew didn’t skimp on the special effects, but the movie’s all about the story and we’re better off for it. Of course, there is that ending — one that may have seemed good on paper, but it hurts the movie. Fortunately, it comes too late to do too much damage.

Collateral
R
Starting tomorrow at area theaters
Three reels out of four

Recommended Rental

Kill Bill, Vol. 2
R
Available Tuesday

The finale of Quentin Tarantino’s magnum-opus homage to violent films of both the East and the West closes with a bang. Uma Thurman once again reprises her role as "The Bride," a member of an elite hit squad who is brutally beaten on her wedding day as all in her party are killed, including her unborn child. David Carradine plays Bill, and Michael Madsen and Darryl Hannah are the other members of the hit squad.