Collateral

I saw Collateral last night. Very good indeed. Tom Cruise may be the star of the show - he does a decent job of being a slick, cocky bad guy instead of a slick, cocky good guy - but it’s Jamie Foxx whose performance makes the film work.

Once Cruise starts his night’s work Michael Mann, one of the more reliable directors working today, ratchets up the tension and never lets go. Some of the cinematography of neon-lit night-time Los Angeles is strikingly beautiful, but for my money the best-looking scene involves the absence of light: a scene where Cruise slips in and out of the shadows in a darkened office building, with only his silhouette occluding the lights of neighbouring buildings in the background to give us a clue as to where he is and what direction he’s heading in.

All in all, Collateral is a very good, nicely executed thriller. Looking back I have just one plot-related quibble: there’s a pivotal moment where a tablet computer’s display survives some pretty severe punishment so it can reveal an important clue to a character who catches a look at the screen, and it just isn’t plausible that an LCD screen would have survived unscathed. However, by that time I was so hooked by the story that I let it pass. Collateral isn’t my favourite Michael Mann film - that would be The Last of the Mohicans - but it’s as good a film as I’ve seen this year.