Collateral

COLLATERAL: I enjoy a good "night" movie, and the description is as simple as it gets: movies that take place almost completely at night or its main action occurs in the evening. And they can be any particular genre as well. Examples: Doug Liman's GO and SWINGERS. Michael Mann's own HEAT. Even the little-seen Stephen Hopkins film JUDGMENT NIGHT, a guilty pleasure by any measure. Michael Mann takes his first stab at a summer action film here, this one starring the biggest name actor you can find, Tom Cruise, transforming him into the evil Vincent, who has just made cabbie Max (Jamie Foxx) his unwilling chauffeur for the night so he can kill key witnesses in a real estate case. The stealth that Vincent needs is ruined on his first kill, shown in the trailer, when his victim falls out of a window and onto Max's taxi, and it sets into motion the do-or-die premise, an opportunity for Vincent and Max to hash out philosophical differences during all the bloodshed. I sort of feel like when a name-director like Mann ventures for a larger audience in the summer, the work is slightly watered down, and this isn't an exception here, although I will say the movie is mostly exhilarating. But the beginning scene of the film, which is a nice touch before Max gets into this situation, inevitably has something to do with the end, and I think that is a trite way to top off two hours of near-brilliance. Every thriller, it seems, in this era, has to have some sort of surprise, twist, or "Oh, yeah..." moment. It doesn't make the film bad, it just makes a great film merely good.