Collateral

I saw Collateral last night on DVD, recommended to me by my son. It's a good action movie for a Saturday night, but, being a Michael Mann film, it's more interesting than usual. Tom Cruise, as in Magnolia, proved again that, used properly, he can act, and he was truly menacing as Vincent, the contract killer picked up accidentally by Max, Jamie Foxx's taxi driver. I hardly recognised Foxx, who showed that he is one of the most interesting actors around in mainstream Hollywood. The real star of the film, though, was LA, an unfamiliar LA; the film takes place over the course of one night, with traffic constantly circling the freeways, and tower blocks, with mean, dark alleys in between, always in the background - all looked strange, unfamiliar. As with other Mann films it wasn't a straightforward action movie; the shootouts were punctuated by scenes in which nothing happens, just conversation. I can't do any better than Roger Ebert, the distinguished critic, who describes the film here as 'one long conversation between a killer and a man who fears for his life, punctuated with what happens at five stops, which are essentially five short films in themselves'. The two stop off for a break in a nightclub, and have a conversation with a trumpeter who tells them of the night he met Miles Davis. It's a conversation steeped in warmth, regret and loss - it has little impact on the film's narrative, but nevertheless deepens and strengthens it. There are several more scenes like this; all are 'excessive' to the narrative in film studies parlance, and they confirm Mann's status as a great director.
It ends on an empty subway train, and, as I've said before, I have a fondness for trains and stations - at night they have an extraordinary atmosphere. Ebert found the ending somewhat stereotyped - I rather liked it, it was melancholy and downbeat. The sky lightens as morning approaches and the film has come full circle - it began just as darkness was falling. The whole film has a lovely symmetry but is nevertheless left unresolved. Max and Annie, the lawyer he has rescued from Vincent walk off the train and along the platform, and that's it.
Mann chooses his projects very carefully, and his films are never less than interesting. Manhunter, The Insider, Heat and The Last of the Mohicans are all fine films, and he made Miami Vice a lot better than it might have been in other hands.