User:LancedSoul/sandbox/Collateral

Collateral is a 2004 American neo-noir action thriller film directed and produced by Michael Mann from a script by Stuart Beattie and starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx. The supporting cast includes Jada Pinkett Smith, Mark Ruffalo, Peter Berg, Javier Bardem, and Bruce McGill. The film was pitched to HBO but was declined. It was purchased by DreamWorks but would not see development for three years.

Plot
After a long day, LA taxi driver Max is about to knock off when sharp-suited Vincent offers him $600 to make five stops. Sounds good until Vincent turns out to be a merciless hitman and each one of those stops involves a hit. As the night goes on, Max starts to wonder if he'll live to see the sunrise, as the pair are hunted by the police and the FBI.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) The famous briefcase shootout scene. Even more badass because the insanely fast quick draw is not special effects—Tom Cruise trained to be able to draw that fast.
 * 2) *The script called for Vincent to fire 5 shots in 1.60 seconds during the briefcase shootout scene. The take used in the film has Cruise managing to do it in 1.39 seconds
 * 3) Awesome score by James Newton Howard.
 * 4) *Nearly every scene of Vincent "at work" is a CMOA, the shootout in the Korean nightclub especially.
 * 5) *Rollin Crumblin' for starters.
 * 6) *The Korean version of Ready Steady Go.
 * 7) *Max and Vincent are stopped at a light. Max is distraught, Vincent indifferent. Suddenly, a friggin' coyote crosses the street, accompanied by the intro riff of "Shadow on the Sun" by Audioslave.
 * 8) *LAX is also pretty banging.
 * 9) Vincent dresses himself in some badass threads, is dangerously efficient as his job (case in point), has a fairly extensive knowledge of jazz, and is pretty friggin' handsome. But as the film goes on, it's shown how empty and messed up he is.
 * 10) Good ending. Max and Annie survive the night and Vincent is defeated. However, Max's cab is totaled and many people (including Fanning who saved Max) were killed throughout the film and Vincent himself dies a rather tragic death. Then there is the fact that Max is an accessory to the murders even if he wasn't complicit, as well as attacking a cop, stealing a cellphone, and reckless driving. Good thing he saved the life of an attorney because she's going to be busy.
 * 11) Vincent tripping over a chair after throwing it through a plate of glass in pursuit of Max and Annie. Even better in that this was a genuine botch on Cruise's part performing the stunt, which Michael Mann thought suited the injured and desperate Vincent so well it was left in.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Poor pacing.
 * 2) While the first and third act had moments, the second act feels unnecessary.

Reception
Collateral received critical acclaim in particular for the performances of Cruise and Foxx, Mann's direction and the editing, although the pacing and second half of the film received a mixed reception. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 86% based on 234 reviews, with an average rating of 7.45/10. The critical consensus states that "Driven by director Michael Mann's trademark visuals and a lean, villainous performance from Tom Cruise, Collateral is a stylish and compelling noir thriller.". On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 71 out of 100, based on 41 reviews.