Collateral is a 2004 Crime thriller films film starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx. It was directed by Michael Mann and written by Stuart Beattie.

The film is notable for the rare villainous role that Tom Cruise plays. There was substantial praise for the performance of Jamie Foxx, including a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination.

The movie takes place in Los Angeles though the original screenplay set the story in New York City. Collateral is also the first major motion picture to be shot with the Viper FilmStream High-Definition Camera. In an HBO movie review, director Michael Mann stated that the movie takes place on the night of January 24 to 25, 2004 from 6:30 PM to 5:40 AM.

Plot

Vincent (Tom Cruise) disembarks from his flight and exchanges briefcases with a stranger (Jason Statham) in the Los Angeles International Airport terminal. Across town, Los Angeles taxi cab driver Max Durocher (Jamie Foxx) drives U.S. Justice Department prosecutor Annie Farrell (Jada Pinkett Smith) through Los Angeles. Striking up conversation during the trip, Annie talks about an upcoming case she's prosecuting. As Max arrives at the Justice Department building, Annie offers him her business card and departs. Moments later, Max picks up Vincent and drives him to a tenement building in Los Angeles. Vincent, impressed with Max's efficiency, offers to hire him as a personal chauffeur for double his normal nightly profit. Max reluctantly agrees, and Vincent instructs him to park in an adjacent alley while Vincent speaks with a client. Minutes later, a body drops onto Max's cab, cracking the windshield and propelling Max from his seat in panic. Max discovers that Vincent was responsible but before he can escape, Vincent takes control and has Max help him hide the body in Max's trunk.

Vincent reveals that he is a hitman, in Los Angeles to murder five people before departing in the morning. Originally hoping to keep his occupation a secret, Vincent forces Max to drive him to his other destinations. Upon reaching the second target, Vincent ties Max to the steering wheel of the cab in order to make sure he doesn't run away while Vincent makes the second kill. While alone, Max tries to arouse the attention of passers by in order to free him, but the people that walk up to the cab turn out to be street thugs, and steal Max's wallet and Vincent's briefcase. As they walk away, Vincent appears and asks for the briefcase back. The thugs refuse, and then attempt to rob Vincent, who knocks one thug's gun and, in a stunning display of skill, performs the Mozambique Drill or Double Tap, shooting both thugs twice in the chest and once in the head in one and a half seconds (which is later shown to be Vincent's chosen method of killing - as told by Det. Fanning).

The third victim is a jazz musician, owner of a jazz bar. Vincent tells Max that he has a few minutes, and that he's a jazz fan. At the bar he invites the owner for a drink with himself and Max. After the club closed and the last waitress was busy in the kitchen, Vincent makes aware to the owner the purpose of his visit but, being impressed with the latter's experiences - namely, an opportunity to play with Miles Davis - offers to spare his life if he can answer a question correctly: "where did Miles learn music?" The owner replies with an answer he believes is correct, but Vincent shoots him several times in the head using a suppressed Ruger MK 2 .22 caliber handgun, and gives a different answer to his question. It is suggested that Vincent would have shot him anyway regardless of what answer had been given.

Before locating the fourth victim, Max receives a call on the taxi dispatch to visit his hospitalized mother Ida, who has been inquiring about him. His visits are routine and Vincent is anxious that he does not break them or it might raise questions. He accompanies Max to the visit and pleasantly converses with Ida, allowing Max the opportunity to steal Vincent's briefcase and hurl it onto the nearby freeway, destroying the details on Vincent's next hits. Instead of killing Max, Vincent sends him into a Mexican club owned by Felix(Javier Bardem), the man who hired Vincent, ordering Max to impersonate him and acquire a backup flash drive containing the information for the last two targets.

Max meets Felix and in a pivotal moment, overcomes his fear and acts out a supremely confident, formidable, well-spoken and dangerous killer, acquiring the flash drive. Meanwhile, Los Angeles Police Detective Fanning (Mark Ruffalo) discovers a connection between Vincent's three victims, reporting this information to the FBI agents doing surveillance on Felix's nightclub, who identify the deceased as witnesses for a trial against Felix beginning the next day. In an attempt to rescue the remaining witnesses, the FBI assembles a SWAT team and travels to a Korean night club, where Vincent and Max sneak inside. The FBI and Vincent converge on the witness simultaneously, igniting a fierce gunfight that disables the SWAT team and throws the crowded club into a panic, allowing Vincent to kill the fourth witness and his bodyguards and disappear. Detective Fanning, who followed the team into the nightclub, rescues Max and drags him outside where he is shot by Vincent, who beckons Max back into his cab.

Following their hasty getaway, Max and Vincent get into a heated argument, with Max calling Vincent a demented sociopath and Vincent retaliating with stinging comments about Max's lack of initiative. Max, seething with rage, deliberately crashes and flips the cab in the middle of the street. With distant police sirens approaching, Vincent abandons Max and staggers into the city. The arriving officer discovers the first victim in Max’s trunk and prepares to arrest Max, who complies until he notices the face of the fifth intended victim on Vincent's open laptop: it is Annie, the attractive prosecutor he picked up earlier.

Spotting the USP .45 handgun Vincent left behind, Max overpowers the policeman and cuffs him to the flipped cab before running toward Annie's office building. He reaches Annie on a stolen cell phone and warns her about Vincent's approach. Max enters the building and stops the assassination attempt by shooting at Vincent, grazing the hitman's face, slightly wounding and temporarily stunning him; he then flees with Annie to the Metrorail station under the building. Vincent follows and corners them in an empty rail car. Vincent and Max abruptly fire at one another through a closed door, with Max escaping injury by stepping to the side as the rail car's lights flicked off, and shooting through the glass, fatally wounding Vincent who had used his routine manner of killing and attempted to perform the Mozambique drill on Max through the door, missing. Dropping his gun and collapsing into a seat, Vincent waits for death as Max and Annie silently look on. Vincent sardonically asks Max if anybody will notice he has died, echoing an earlier story of Vincent's about a man who died on the MTA and sat undiscovered by LA commuters for hours. Max and Annie get off the train at the next station while the train continues toward Long Beach with dawn breaking, and with a now dead Vincent sitting slumped in his seat.

Cast

• Tom Cruise as Vincent, a detached yet philosophical contract killer
• Jamie Foxx as Max Durocher, a veteran taxi cab driver
• Jada Pinkett Smith as Annie, a U.S. Prosecutor in charge of the Federal case against Felix
• Irma P. Hall as Ida, Max's mother
• Barry Shabaka Henley as Daniel
• Richard T. Jones as Traffic Cop #1
• Debi Mazar as Young Professional Woman (The Couple Fighting)
• Jamie McBride as Traffic Cop #2
• Bruce McGill as Pedrosa, an FBI agent watching Felix
• Emilio Rivera as Paco
• Mark Ruffalo as Fanning, an LAPD Detective
• Peter Berg as Richard Weidner, a LAPD Detective
• Javier Bardem as Felix, a Mexican crime lord who hires Vincent to execute the witnesses and prosecuter in the Federal case against him
• Klea Scott as Fed #1
• Jason Statham as Airport Man
• Bodhi Elfman as Young Professional Man (The Couple Fighting)

Cameos

In the beginning of the film, upon leaving the airport, Vincent (Tom Cruise) receives the briefcase containing his files from an Englishman, played by Jason Statham (The Transporter).

In the scene where Max enters the "El Rodeo" nightclub to meet with Felix, jazz guitarist Luis Villegas appears in the background as a member of the band playing in the club. Felix himself is played by Spanish actor Javier Bardem in a cameo role.

The Insider co-star Debi Mazar also makes a cameo appearance alongside Bodhi Elfman as a bickering couple in Max's cab.

Themes

In the film's DVD commentary, Michael Mann said that the general theme of Collateral is the clashing of ideals behind the two main characters. Vincent lives his life by improvisation and living in the moment. He often mentions his reverence for constant change and making things up as he goes along. This is further expressed in Vincent's appreciation of jazz. In contrast, Max has been driving cabs for twelve years because he believes that everything he does must be meticulously planned, especially the "Island Limos" company he wishes to set up.

Throughout the movie, Max changes to be more like Vincent - he becomes more able to adapt and more fluid in behaviour. In the final shootout, Vincent used his usual Mozambique Drill attack method, hitting the doors separating him from Max. Max, on the other hand, moved to the side and fired through the windows. Due to Vincent's close proximity, Max was able to hit him in the abdomen with a lucky shot. Keeping in line with other events in the film, the victor of this confrontation was the one who was most able to adapt; Max.

Reception

The film received positive reviews. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 86% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 213 reviews. On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 71 out of 100, based on 41 reviews.

The film opened August 6, 2004 in 3,188 theaters in the United States and Canada and grossed $24.7 million its opening weekend, ranking #1 at the box office. It remained in theaters for 14 weeks and eventually grossed $101 million in the United States and Canada. In other countries it grossed a total of $116.7 million, for a total worldwide gross of $217.7 million.

Richard Roeper placed Collateral as his 10th favorite movie of 2004. The film was voted as the 9th best film set in Los Angeles in the last 25 years by a group of Los Angeles Times writers and editors with two criteria: "The movie had to communicate some inherent truth about the L.A. experience, and only one film per director was allowed on the list".

Awards and nominations

2005 ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards

• Won - Top Box Office Film — James Newton Howard, Antonio Pinto

2005 Academy Awards (Oscars)

• Nominated - Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role — Jamie Foxx
• Nominated - Best Editing — Jim Miller, Paul Rubell

2005 Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films (Saturn Awards)

• Nominated - Best Actor (Film) — Tom Cruise
• Nominated - Best Director — Michael Mann
• Nominated - Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film
• Nominated - Best Writing — Stuart Beattie

2005 American Society of Cinematographers

• Nominated - Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Theatrical Releases — Dion Beebe, Paul Cameron

2005 Art Directors Guild

• Nominated - Feature Film - Contemporary Film — David Wasco, Daniel T. Dorrance, Aran Mann, Gerald Sullivan, Christopher Tandon

2005 BAFTA Film Awards

• Won - Best Cinematography — Dion Beebe, Paul Cameron
• Nominated - Best Actor in a Supporting Role — Jamie Foxx
• Nominated - David Lean Award for Direction — Michael Mann
• Nominated - Best Editing — Jim Miller, Paul Rubell
• Nominated - Best Screenplay (Original) — Stuart Beattie
• Nominated - Best Sound — Elliott Koretz, Lee Orloff, Michael Minkler, Myron Nettinga

2005 Black Reel Awards

• Won - Best Supporting Actor — Jamie Foxx
• Nominated - Best Supporting Actress — Jada Pinkett Smith

2005 Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards

• Nominated - Best Supporting Actor — Jamie Foxx
• Nominated - Best Picture

2005 Golden Globe Awards

• Nominated - Best Supporting Actor - Jamie Foxx

Filming in high-definition

Michael Mann chose to use the Viper FilmStream High-Definition Camera to film many of the scenes of Collateral, the first such use in a major motion picture. There are many scenes of the movie where the use of the high-definition is evident - especially in scenes where the landscape or skyline of Los Angeles is visible in the background, but also during many of the nighttime scenes, where the high-definition is able to bring out more details in a dark, colorless scene. Mann would employ the same camera for the filming of Miami Vice.

Soundtrack

1. Tom Rothrock - "Briefcase"
2. Cody Chesnutt - "The Seed (2.0)" (ft. The Roots) (extended radio edit)
3. Groove Armada - "Hands of Time"
4. Calexico - "Guero Canelo"
5. Tom Rothrock - "Rollin' Crumblin'"
6. James Newton Howard - "Max Steals Briefcase"
7. Green Car Motel - "Destino De Abril"
8. Audioslave - "Shadow on the Sun"
9. James Newton Howard - "Island Limos"
10. Miles Davis - "Spanish Key"
11. Klazz Brothers - "Air" (ft. Cuba Percussion)
12. Paul Oakenfold - "Ready Steady Go (Korean Style)"
13. Antonio Pinto - "Car Crash"
14. James Newton Howard - "Vincent Hops Train"
15. James Newton Howard - "Finale"
16. Antonio Pinto - "Requiem"
17. Alice In Chains' "Man in the Box" is featured (and is still currently featured) on the official flash site of the film, despite not being on the soundtrack.

References

External links

• Official site
• Sight and Sound interview with Mann