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Watch Collateral with a subscription on Paramount+, rent on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

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Driven by director Michael Mann's trademark visuals and a lean, villainous performance from Tom Cruise, Collateral is a stylish and compelling noir thriller.

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Michael Mann

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Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, 'collateral' a genre thriller, but so much more.

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"Collateral" opens with Tom Cruise exchanging briefcases with a stranger in an airport. Then, intriguingly, it seems to turn into another movie. We meet a cab driver named Max ( Jamie Foxx ), who picks up a ride named Annie ( Jada Pinkett Smith). She's all business. She rattles off the streets he should take to get her to downtown Los Angeles. He says he knows a faster route. They end up making a bet: The ride will be free if he doesn't get them downtown faster.

The scene continues. It's not about flirtation. Sometimes you only need to have a few words with a person to know you would like to have many more. They open up. She's a federal prosecutor who confesses she's so nervous the night before a big case that she cries. He says he plans to own his own limousine service. They like each other. He lets her get out of the cab and knows he should have asked for her number. Then she taps on the window and gives him her card.

This is a long scene to come at the beginning of a thriller, but a good one, establishing two important characters. It is also good on its own terms, like a self-contained short film. It allows us to learn things about Max we could not possibly learn in the scenes to follow, and adds a subtext after the next customer into his cab is Tom Cruise.

Cruise plays a man named Vincent, who seems certain, centered, and nice. He needs a driver to spend all night with him, driving to five destinations, and offers him six crisp $100 bills as persuasion. First stop, an apartment building. No parking in front. Vincent tells Max to wait for him in the alley. If you know nothing about the film, save this review until after.

A body lands on top of the cab. "You threw him out of the window and killed him?" Max asks incredulously. No, says Vincent, the bullets killed him. Then he went out the window. So now we know more about Vincent. The movie is structured to make his occupation a surprise, but how much of a surprise can it be when the movie's Web site cheerfully blurts out: "Vincent is a contract killer." Never mind. The surprise about Vincent's occupation is the least of the movie's pleasures.

"Collateral" is essentially a long conversation between a killer and a man who fears for his life. Mann punctuates the conversation with what happens at each of the five stops, where he uses detailed character roles and convincing dialogue by writer Stuart Beattie to create, essentially, more short films that could be free-standing. Look at the heartbreaking scene where Vincent takes Max along with him into a nightclub, where they have a late-night talk with Daniel ( Barry Shabaka Henley ), the owner. Daniel remembers a night Miles Davis came into the club, recalling it with such warmth and wonder, such regret for his own missed opportunities as a musician, that we're looking into the window of his life.

Mann is working in a genre with "Collateral," as he was in " Heat " (1995), but he deepens genre through the kind of specific detail that would grace a straight drama. Consider a scene where Vincent asks (or orders) Max to take him to the hospital where Max's mother is a patient. The mother is played by Irma P. Hall (the old lady in the Coens' "The Lady-Killers"), and she makes an instant impression, as a woman who looks at this man with her son, and intuits that everything might not be right, and keeps that to herself.

These scenes are so much more interesting than the standard approach of the shifty club owner or the comic-relief Big Mama. Mann allows dialogue into the kind of movie that many directors now approach as wall-to-wall action. Action gains a lot when it happens to convincing individuals, instead of to off-the-shelf action figures.

What's particularly interesting is the way he, and Cruise, modulate the development of Vincent as a character. Vincent is not what he seems, but his secret is not that he's a killer; that's merely his occupation. His secret is his hidden psychological life going back to childhood, and in the way he thinks all the time about what life means, even as he takes it. When Max tells him the taxi job is "temporary" and talks about his business plans, Vincent finds out how long he's been driving a cab (12 years) and quotes John Lennon : "Life is what happens while you're making other plans." Max tells Vincent something, too: "You lack standard parts that are supposed to be there in most people."

I would have preferred for the movie to end in something other than a chase scene, particularly one involving a subway train, since I've seen about six of those already this summer, but Mann directs it well. And he sets it up with a cat-and-mouse situation in a darkened office, which is very effective; it opens with a touch of " Rear Window " as Max watches what's happening on different floors of an office building.

Cruise and the filmmakers bring a great deal more to his character than we expect in a thriller. What he reveals about Vincent, deliberately and unintentionally, leads up to a final line that is worthy of one of those nihilistic French crime movies from the 1950s. Jamie Foxx's work is a revelation. I've thought of him in terms of comedy (" Booty Call ," "Breakin' all the Rules"), but here he steps into a dramatic lead and is always convincing and involving. Now I'm looking forward to his playing Ray Charles ; before, I wasn't so sure. And observe the way Jada Pinkett Smith sidesteps the conventions of the Meet Cute and brings everyday plausibility to every moment of Annie's first meeting with Max. This is a rare thriller that's as much character study as sound and fury.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Collateral (2004)

Rated R for violence and language

120 minutes

Emilio Rivera as Paco

Jada Pinkett Smith as Annie

Tom Cruise as Vincent

Javier Bardem as Felix

Barry Shabaka Henley as Daniel

Jamie Foxx as Max

Irma P. Hall as Max's mother

Directed by

Michael Mann
Stuart Beattie

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Collateral Is the Most Michael Mann Film of All Michael Mann Films

An underrated gritty return to form, the film includes the best seven minutes on his resume that don’t involve Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and a diner booth.

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In Michael Mann’s greatest movies, the good guys are never really all that different from the bad guys. And make no mistake, they are always guys. The heroes and antiheroes of his stylishly macho films are put through their cat-and-mouse paces in a decidedly grey moral world, rather than a black-and-white one. There’s no room for concepts like right and wrong, they are all lonely nocturnal ambiguity—modern-day Ronin sagas cloaked in a cool shades of gun-metal slate. Just think of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in 1995’s Heat , where these two acting heavyweights play two equally obsessive sides of the same coin. Watching their famous diner tete-a-tete with the sound off, you’d never know who was the cop and who was the criminal.

Heat is widely (and rightly) considered to be Mann’s masterpiece—the director’s grand meditation on all of his favorite pet themes: loyalty, honor, integrity, crime, compulsion, loneliness, and the point where good and evil bleed into one another until you’re no longer sure which side you’re meant to be rooting for. It’s a grab bag of leitmotifs that was there from the start in the director’s pair of ‘80s gems, Thief and Manhunter . But as undeniably lean and mean as both of those films are, I’d argue the movie that actually nips most closely at the heels of Heat in the top tier of Mann’s underworld classics is 2004’s Collateral —another violent, nihilism-drenched thriller that, if you squint just a little, seems to exist in the same spiritual universe as Heat . They’re two movements in an underworld symphony of L.A. after dark.

Just out in a flawless new 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, Collateral isn’t exactly what anyone who considers themselves to be an auteur buff would call a “deep cut.” Any movie that stars Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx and makes $220 million at the worldwide box office can hardly be called “overlooked.” And yet, well, it kind of is. The story of a lone-wolf contract killer (Cruise) who strongarms a hapless and meticulous cab driver (Foxx) into ferrying him on his nightly rounds to wipe out five targets involved in a grand-jury case, Collateral may not be the best Michael Mann film, but it certainly is the most Michael Mann film.

When Collateral hit theaters 16 years ago, Mann was coming off a pair of well-received, Oscar-nominated dramas, 1999’s The Insider and 2001’s Ali . Both had the technical precision, live-wire performances, and high-IQ smarts we expect from Mann’s movies. And both were based on real life headlines and headline-makers. But let’s face it, real life isn’t what we’re looking for when we fork over ten bucks to see a new Michael Mann movie. We want crooks plying their crooked trades in the shadows, haunted men obsessed with their jobs to the point of mania, and the sort of gritty-but-gorgeous action set pieces that leave you breathless and spent. Collateral marked a return to stoic form.

Written by Australian Stuart Beattie, Collateral was originally called The Last Domino , a lousy title which was thankfully changed. And eventually, the script made its way into the hands of Frank Darabont ( The Shawshank Redemption ), who had a deal at the time to make low-budget genre movies for HBO. But HBO passed, clearing the way for DreamWorks to step in. The studio flirted with Mimi Leder ( Deep Impact ) and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski ( Saving Private Ryan ) to direct, but both would end up drifting away. As would Russell Crowe, who was itching to play the hitman-villain role of Vincent. But the one fortuitous thing that came from Crowe’s brief involvement was that he passed his enthusiasm onto the man who recently directed him in The Insider , Michael Mann.

More Coverage Of the Movies That Matter

With Crowe out, Mann sparked to the idea of casting Tom Cruise against heroic type. Adam Sandler toyed with the idea of playing Max, the cabbie. But when Sandler bailed to star in Spanglish (just one of the countless puzzling, ‘What If’ choices Hollywood happens to be littered with), Mann offered the part to Jamie Foxx—a happy accident if ever there was one because he’s absolutely perfect. Something Mann suspected from working with the actor on Ali . As is Cruise, whose unexpected amorality and guiltless, hair-trigger sadism shows just how great the star can be when he fucks with our expectations and zigs when we expect him to zag.

Over the years, Mann has described Collateral as “only the third act” of a story. And that gambit works so well in the film that you have to wonder why more screenwriters and directors don’t try that sort of formal experimentation more often. At the opening of the film, we have no idea who Cruise’s Vincent is, what his backstory is, or what he’s doing in L.A. We just seeing him walking through LAX, presumably just off a plane from Chicago or some other metropolis that breeds cold-eyed killers dressed in sharp grey suits with sunglasses and a shock of silver-grey hair on his head that matches the close-cropped, salt-and-pepper beard on his face. If Tom Ford ever created an haute couture line for sociopaths, Vincent would be its posterboy.

While Cruise’s Vincent is a complete mystery, Foxx’s Max is less so thanks to an introductory scene in which he takes a prosecutor (Jada Pinkett Smith in the best ten minutes she’s ever had on screen) to the airport. Within seconds, he knows what she does for a living, what makes her tick, and even who makes her handbag. Because, for Max, his cab is a confessional booth on wheels. He sees so many people in his rearview mirror every day that he’s developed a sixth sense about them. It’s too bad he doesn’t size up Vincent a few beats longer before he becomes his next fare. Cruise starts off chatty and chummy with Max, offering him $600 to take him to five different spots around L.A. And if the offer seems to be too good to be true, that’s because it is. While parked in an alley during their first stop, a bullet-riddled body lands on the roof of Max’s cab with Cruise racing after it, suddenly forced to explain the new reality of the long, bloody evening that lays ahead. “You killed him!” Max says. To which Vincent matter-of-factly replies, “No, the bullets and the fall killed him….Now get in the fucking car.”

Collateral (4K UHD + Blu-ray + Digital)

Watching Collateral again this week, the thing that surprised me the most about it was how amazing Cruise is playing a psycho grim reaper—and why, with the exception of 1999’s Magnolia , he didn’t venture into the dark more often. You could say that Collateral is the anti-Tom Cruise movie, an immersive, full-body deep dive into seductive sadism and remorseless evil where he gets to spout be-bop arias of unhinged lunacy that we rarely get to hear coming out his mouth like “We’ve got to make the best of it. Improvise, adapt to the environment, Darwin, shit happens, I Ching, whatever man, we gotta roll with it.” And yet, it’s also totally a Tom Cruise movie because, well, you can’t help but be a little charmed—seduced even—by this existential sicko no matter how depraved his five-item To Do list is.

Like every Michael Mann movie—even the not very good ones like Public Enemies and Blackhat —every single frame in Collateral is composed with a jeweler’s eye for detail. This was actually the first film in which Mann (or really any A-list Hollywood director actually) used high-def video instead of film stock. Mann has said that in order to capture the silhouettes of L.A. at night, celluloid wouldn’t have worked. I’ll take his word for it. But the film’s green-tinted graininess gives the Tinseltown of Collateral the haunted neo-noir glow of a ghost town that left the lights on before it was abandoned. In the movie’s greatest sustained spasm of suspense and violence, he shoots a chaotic gunfight inside a Koreatown dance club like something out of one of the higher rings of Dante’s Inferno. It may be the best seven minutes on his resume that don’t involve Robert De Niro and Al Pacino sitting in a diner booth. And watching it, you can’t help but think of what a mess it might have been had someone like Michael Bay or Joss Whedon directed it instead.

If Collateral wasn’t as great a film as it is, it would be worth checking out just for that sequence alone. But, of course, there’s so many more brilliant moments hiding in plain sight in the movie that jump out at you the more times you watch it: The way Foxx manages to flirt with Pinkett Smith without actually flirting; the way Cruise pop, pop, pops a bunch of drug-addled goons trying to make off with his briefcase and then delivers one final pop without looking as an exclamation point; the way Javier Bardem, in just one quick scene, manages to turn a story about Santa Claus into the cold-sweat nightmare fuel. But don’t take my word for it. Throw it on for yourself and, you know, “improvise, adapt to the environment, Darwin, shit happens, I Ching, whatever man, roll with it….”

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2004 Directed by Michael Mann

It started like any other night.

Cab driver Max picks up a man who offers him $600 to drive him around. But the promise of easy money sours when Max realizes his fare is an assassin.

Jamie Foxx Tom Cruise Jada Pinkett Smith Mark Ruffalo Peter Berg Javier Bardem Bruce McGill Klea Scott Barry Shabaka Henley Irma P. Hall Richard T. Jones Jamie McBride Troy Blendell Emilio Rivera Bodhi Elfman Debi Mazar Ken Waters Charlie E. Schmidt Michael Bentt Ian Hannin Robert Deamer David Mersault Anthony Ochoa Omar Orozco Cosme Urquiola Edgar Sánchez Angelo Tiffe Thomas Rosales Jr. Inmo Yuon Show All… Wade Williams Paul Adelstein Jessica Ferrarone Howard Bachrach Chic Daniel Corinne Chooey JoNell Kennedy Steven Kozlowski Roger Stoneburner Rodney Sandberg George Petrina Donald Dean Elliott Newman Trevor Ware Bobby English Auggie Cavanagh Ronald Muldrow Peter McKernan Ivor Shier Daniel Luján Eddie Diaz Joey Burns John Convertino Josh Cruze Martin Flores Rick Garcia Larry G. Goldman Maurilio Pineda Dan Sistos Jacob Valenzuela Luis Villegas Yussi Wenger Jason Statham Ismeal Vidrio Ron Eckert Manuel Urrego Jessie Bernard Luis Moncada Dyna Teal Sandi Schroeder Michael-John Wolfe Addie Yungmee J.D. McElroy Megan Hiratzka Kate Gopacco Christy Yi Lisa Marie Basada Wilson Wong Mark Stainbrook Brandon Molale Marianne M. Arreaga Spike Silver Ben Mihm Niles Roth Michael Waxman Linda Asuma Conor Dean Smith Gino Montesinos Paul Aulicino Andy Cheng D-Teflon Danny Del Toro Michael Dotson Melissa Gomez Jerald Garner Cameron Lee Annabella Gutman Masami Okada Tony Sagastizado I Mark Kubr Gary Rodriguez Henry T. Yamada Tara Erickson Esther K. Chae

Director Director

Michael Mann

Producers Producers

Julie Richardson Michael Mann Michael Waxman Michael Doven Bryan H. Carroll Gusmano Cesaretti Julie Herrin

Writer Writer

Stuart Beattie

Casting Casting

Francine Maisler Lindsey Hayes Kroeger Kathy Driscoll-Mohler Pamela Thomas

Editors Editors

Paul Rubell Jim Miller

Cinematography Cinematography

Dion Beebe Paul Cameron

Assistant Directors Asst. Directors

Michael Waxman Carla Bowen Jesse Sternbaum

Additional Directing Add. Directing

Bryan H. Carroll Gusmano Cesaretti

Executive Producers Exec. Producers

Robert N. Fried Frank Darabont Chuck Russell Peter Giuliano

Lighting Lighting

Dara Norman Phil Walker Gannon Murphy Ann Rosencrans Jesse Wine

Camera Operators Camera Operators

Chris Haarhoff Gary Jay Edward A. Gutentag Dale Myrand Steve Koster

Additional Photography Add. Photography

Sion Michel Simon Jayes Glenn Brown Joe Angel Martinez Darin Moran

Production Design Production Design

David Wasco

Art Direction Art Direction

Daniel T. Dorrance Gerald Sullivan Christopher Tandon Aran Mann

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Clint Wallace Patrick M. Sullivan Sandy Reynolds-Wasco Scott M. Anderson Liz Chiz Bart Barbuscia John R. Boucher Luigi Mugavero Jordan Steinberg

Special Effects Special Effects

Matt Downey John J. Downey Thomas L. Fisher

Visual Effects Visual Effects

Jonah Loop Robert Rossello David Sosalla Robert Stadd John E. Sullivan Patrick Phillips Tyler Foell

Title Design Title Design

Jay Johnson

Stunts Stunts

Joel Kramer Liisa Cohen Tsuyoshi Abe Jalil Jay Lynch Troy Brown Debbie Evans Lisa Dempsey Troy Gilbert Tim Gilbert Jeff Imada Sophia M. Crawford Thomas Rosales Jr. Annie Ellis Caryn Mower Chuck Picerni Jr. Diana R. Lupo Michiko Nishiwaki Gary McLarty Manny Perry Jeffrey J. Dashnaw Simone Boisseree Al Goto Andy Cheng

Choreography Choreography

Fatima Robinson Aakomon Jones

Composers Composers

James Newton Howard António Pinto

Sound Sound

Michael Minkler Myron Nettinga Elliott Koretz Lee Orloff Mike Chock Jon Ailetcher Becky Sullivan John C. Stuver Scott Morgan Mary Jo Lang Alyson Dee Moore John Roesch Michael Payne Kim Secrist Steve Nelson Eddie Bydalek Craig Mann

Costume Design Costume Design

Jeffrey Kurland

Makeup Makeup

Keith Hall Keith VanderLaan Kenny Myers Lois Burwell LaLette Littlejohn Matthew W. Mungle Wesley Wofford Jake Garber Cleve Gunderman Jamie Kelman Bart Mixon

Hairstyling Hairstyling

Judith A. Cory Deidra Dixon Araxi Lindsey Roddy Stayton Bob Kretschmer Terrie Velazquez Owen

Paramount Parkes/MacDonald Productions Edge City DreamWorks Pictures

Primary Language

Spoken languages.

Spanish English

Releases by Date

02 aug 2004, 30 aug 2004, 01 sep 2004, 03 sep 2004, 07 sep 2004, 11 sep 2004, 04 aug 2004, 05 aug 2004, 06 aug 2004, 11 aug 2004, 12 aug 2004, 19 aug 2004, 20 aug 2004, 26 aug 2004, 27 aug 2004, 08 sep 2004, 09 sep 2004, 16 sep 2004, 17 sep 2004, 23 sep 2004, 24 sep 2004, 29 sep 2004, 30 sep 2004, 01 oct 2004, 06 oct 2004, 07 oct 2004, 08 oct 2004, 14 oct 2004, 15 oct 2004, 21 oct 2004, 22 oct 2004, 29 oct 2004, 30 oct 2004, 05 nov 2004, 12 nov 2004, 22 jan 2005, 30 sep 2015, 15 oct 2017, 30 jun 2020, 30 dec 2020, 01 jul 2022, 31 mar 2005, 15 jun 2010, 05 may 2021, 27 dec 2019, releases by country.

Theatrical 13
Theatrical MA15+
Theatrical 14
Theatrical 14A
Theatrical 15
Premiere Paris
Premiere Deauville Film Festival
Theatrical TP
Physical DVD
Physical Blu-Ray
Digital VOD
Digital Prime Video
Physical 4K UHD
Digital 16 Netflix
Premiere 16 Berlin
Theatrical 16
Theatrical IIB
Premiere Venice Film Festival
Theatrical T
Theatrical R15+
Theatrical 18SG
Theatrical C

Netherlands

Premiere Film by the Sea Festival

Philippines

Theatrical R-13 Manila
Theatrical R-13 Davao
Theatrical M/16

Russian Federation

Theatrical 16+
Theatrical NC-16

South Korea

Switzerland.

Theatrical 18+
Premiere R Los Angeles, California
Theatrical R Urbanworld Film Festival
Theatrical R

United Arab Emirates

120 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by nickusen

yo homie, is that my briefcase?

Review by Karst ★★★★½

lighthearted buddy roadtrip movie

Review by Josh Lewis ★★★★★ 10

Two lonely specks in the cosmos pass each other by and irreversibly change courses. Not sure why this hit me harder than it has on previous watches but I love the immediacy and working-class detail Mann manages to fit into the minute logistics of his thrills, the wounded sensitivity of the character writing (so many wonderful little acting gestures between Cruise and Foxx who are locked in a moral and philosophical battle as much as a literal one) and of course the stylish mood and existentialism of its constantly on-the-move handheld, digital lowlight depiction of LA at night. Chris Cornell howling into the fuzzy orange sky had me practically in tears! Right when it hit midnight I was watching the club shootout. Just sublime, Happy New Year y’all!

Review by fran hoepfner ★★★★ 1

if I had to answer a jazz riddle to save my life, I would die

Review by Will Menaker ★★★★ 10

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

'Heat' begins with De Niro arriving in LA via the subway, 'Collateral' ends with Tom Cruise dying on the same subway as it leaves town. Both of their characters dress identically. What can this mean? What do trains represent in the Michael Mann canon? A terminus that marks the borders of reality in the dreamy LA nightscape? A refutation of the illusion of freedom and possibility that cars provide on the urban canvas? There is only one beginning and one ending for all of us and everything that happens in between is simply men doing their jobs.

I wish Tom Cruise played bad guys more often.

Review by Mike Ginn ★★★½ 6

sick of characters taking off their glasses when shit gets real. that’s when you want your glasses the most

Review by Josiah Morgan ★★★★★ 4

tom cruise nearly gets into a different taxi at the start lol

Review by matt lynch ★★★★ 3

Mann's MY DINNER WITH ANDRE.

Review by esther ★★★★★ 7

You know what really sticking out about these Mann films I've been watching. His boundless empathy. This film is a brutal refutation to the "cool hitman" genre, where "moral codes" make it seem acceptable for the protagonists to kill. Cruise's Vincent uses nihilism to justify his actions. Foxx's Max -- and Mann, in kind -- refuse to concede such a cynical outlook. They insist that this world is worth something. Look at the way Mann shoots his cityscapes, seemingly in awe of their aesthetic power. Just look at one of his other great films: Will Graham's superpower in Manhunter is his ability to empathize with even the most abominable individuals. Max has the same ability in this film. Mann's films…

Review by Nakul ★★★★★ 7

“yo homie, is that my briefcase?”

Tom Cruise really sells the shit out of this line.

Review by Evan ★★★★½ 12

It's truly incredible how many GREAT movies Tom Cruise has been in. Whether it's a drama like Eyes Wide Shut , or an action movie like Top Gun , and let's not forget a comedic role like Tropic Thunder ; he is always in top form. There'e no denying that Tommy C is one of the best actors of all-time. I might not be the biggest fan of the real life Cruise, but as an actor I absolutely love the guy. Collateral is just another great Tommy C movie to add to the ongoing list.

Review by Josh Lewis ★★★★★ 12

Watched the new 4K blu with Michael Mann's commentary on. Don't really have anything to add on my previous review so i figured i'd just let you all know that it takes less than 10 minutes into the movie for Mann to start talking about sophisticated counter-intel operations in the offshore world of narco-trafficking cartels at the end of the Cold War.

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DVD & Streaming
Action/Adventure , Drama

Content Caution

In Theaters

Tom Cruise as Vincent; Jamie Foxx as Max; Jada Pinkett Smith as Annie

Home Release Date

Michael Mann

Distributor

Movie review.

Why does a hired killer keep killing? Why does a cab driver with a dream refuse to take any risks? These questions come into increasing focus when a hit man named Vincent hires a cab driver named Max to take him around Los Angeles for a night.

As the film unspools, we learn that Vincent has been hired to take out, in one night, five key witnesses in a federal case against a drug trafficking kingpin named Felix. When one of those bodies crashes into the roof of Max’s cab at their first stop, the well-dressed, efficient Vincent is forced to let the meticulous cabbie in on the plan—and force him at gunpoint to keep driving.

Although he looks for ways to escape Vincent’s fatal company, Max is also drawn to the killer’s professional sense of calm, control and fearlessness. In turn, the ruthless, brutal Vincent seems to grow fond of the cabbie, pushing him to take more control over his life. Along the way, Vincent makes Max go visit the driver’s mother in the hospital and urges him to call the pretty lawyer who gave Max her number earlier in the evening.

As the night wears on and the bodies pile high, the two develop a strange, uneasy chemistry, opening up to each other even as Vincent forces Max into greater areas of danger. Eventually, the tension builds past a violent nightclub clash with the police and FBI to a pivotal confrontation between the killer and the cabbie.

Positive Elements

Max is a man who takes pride in doing his job well, and he treats his customers with kindness and respect. He listens to their problems and tries to be encouraging. He also cares for his mother and visits her daily in the hospital, even though he feels she doesn’t respect him. A police officer refuses to give up tracking down the killer, and risks his life to save Max. Max shows courage when facing lethal criminals, and he also risks his life to save others. Max challenges Vincent’s warped view of the world.

Spiritual Elements

While Collateral features no overt spiritual content, the heart of the film is found between Vincent’s and Max’s perspectives on life and the nature of the universe. More below.

Sexual Content

Some women in a nightclub wear tight clothing while dancing to sensual beats. A couple in Max’s cab briefly utter some sexual references while fighting.

Violent Content

This story of a hired killer features lots of bloody, brutal killing. A body crashes onto the roof of Max’s cab. Two muggers are shot at point-blank range in a scuffle over a briefcase; one is shot again when the killer sees he’s not dead. Another man is shot two or three times in the forehead in the middle of a conversation. Several bodies are seen in a morgue, some with bullet wounds and blood.

As Vincent attempts to carry out a hit in a nightclub, necks and limbs are broken with loud crunches and snapping. A man is stabbed. Another is shot in the leg, causing blood to spatter. Many bystanders, federal agents and criminals are fatally shot.

A man intentionally causes a potentially fatal car accident. A man is shot several times, resulting in plenty of onscreen blood.

Crude or Profane Language

The language alone would have earned Collateral an R rating, with around 20 f-words and 30 s-words, in addition to the usual roundup of expletives. The names of God and Jesus are taken in vain several times. Vincent also forces Max to use strong profanity when talking to his boss.

Drug and Alcohol Content

A liquor ad adorns the top of Max’s cab. Vincent and Max visit a few nightclubs where characters are drinking.

Other Negative Elements

The police and FBI are shown to be ineffective due to selfish ambition and inter-agency squabbling. Vincent is particularly cruel to a victim he actually seems to respect. And Max—the good guy in all of this—ultimately throws aside respect for the law, resists arrest, handcuffs a police officer, steals his gun, pulls it on an innocent bystander and steals a cell phone. (His motivation is perfect; he’s determined to save a woman from being killed. But the message his actions send are another matter altogether.) Both Max and Vincent complain about the negative influence of their parents.

Director Michael Mann’s famous intensity and attention to detail serve him well in this tight, quickly paced, but brutal film. The washed-out, grainy, handheld shots lend his L.A. and the film a sense of emptiness. And the sparse jazz, classical and down-tempo soundtrack stretch the movie’s already moody, ambient feel.

Tom Cruise—sporting Raymond Burr’s short, gray haircut from Hitchcock’s Rear Window —delivers a killer who is coldly competent in his expensive suit. But somehow he’s not terribly menacing, maintaining violent but amiable control over his victims. Cruise effectively provides glimpses into Vincent’s turmoil through his features more than this dialogue.

Jamie Foxx, on the other hand, is instantly likable and lets you all the way into Max’s fragile, hopeful existence. Without breaking the tension completely, Cruise and Foxx even succeed in providing some genuine laughs.

Thanks to writer Stuart Beattie (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl) , Collateral finds a deeper level than many films about stone-cold killers. Vincent is philosophical in his lethal professionalism. He loves to mimic his hero Miles Davis by improvising and adapting. Beattie described him this way to The Hollywood Reporter: “He’s the kind of guy you’d like to have around for dinner if it wasn’t for the fact that he killed people for a living.”

When pushed by Max to admit he’s a sociopath without the ability to feel for other people, Vincent responds angrily that in a world of 6 billion inhabitants on a planet that’s one among millions in the vastness of space, who really cares about one or two people. “Who notices?” he shouts.

In that exchange, Beattie captures the ultimately logical conclusion of a worldview that dismisses God in favor of randomness and chance. Why not kill if it will help you make the most of your limited time in existence? If we’re all just random “specks” accountable to no one, as Vincent calls us, where’s the real wrong in ending a few lives if that’s what you’re really good at? ( Especially if you’re as good as Vincent.)

Beattie’s script acknowledges Vincent’s evil, but offers only a weak counter to it. In a way, in fact, the view is validated as Max begins to realize he’s been too careful in his life, too fearful of risking much to get what he wants out of his short time on earth, leaving moviegoers with no happy, moral middle to such a hopeless worldview.

True, not everyone who shares the perspective that each human life is just lint on the surface of time turns into a hired killer. But the attitude shows up in other areas. On the way out of the screening I heard one guy in his late teens or early 20s openly admiring Vincent’s approach to life. Even if that young man never participates in violence as brutal and calculated as the decidedly unfriendly-for-families deeds pictured in this film, how will that attitude impact his relationships with friends, co-workers, a spouse, children? What “lesser” evil will he justify by rationalizing human life down to simple biology? How would his choices be different over the next 40 to 50 years if he could believe there is Someone who notices and that Someone also cares for him?

Vincent shows us that worldview perspectives matter because they become a map for the choices we make. But such deeply philosophical questions won’t be enough to convince many families that they’ll be helped by the choice to take in the graphic violence of this dark tale.

Christopher Lyon

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Scriptwriting

Neon Noir — ‘Collateral’ Movie Breakdown & Appreciation

F ew filmmakers are able to imbue simple, grounded genre stories with as much dramatic heft and visual style as Michael Mann. One of the “neon-noir” innovator’s greatest cinematic achievements is his action-thriller Collateral (2004) . If Heat was Michael Mann’s masterwork of the ‘90s, then the Collateral movie was his masterwork of the ‘00s and, arguably, his last great film to date. Collateral was Mann’s most successful film in terms of box office earnings. The film was made for a budget of approximately 65 million dollars and brought in a massive return of over 220 million dollars. Let’s take a look back at Collateral and examine what made it work so well.

What is the movie Collateral about

The story and style of collateral.

So, what is the movie Collateral about? Collateral makes use of a simple, clever premise that allows ample opportunity for both action and character exploration. To take a closer look at how the opening minutes of Collateral set everything in motion efficiently, we can bring the screenplay into StudioBinder’s screenwriting software.

Follow the image link to download a complete PDF of the script.

how to write a camera shot in a screenplay - studiobinder screenwriting software

Collateral movie screenplay

The Collateral movie cast is one of its greatest strengths. The protagonist, played brilliantly by Jamie Foxx, is a LA cab driver named Max who dreams of owning his own limousine business. But Max has been stagnating in his dead-end job for years. He has the ambition but not the drive or the follow-through. That’s where Vincent comes in.

Far from being a generic Tom Cruise hitman movie

Vincent is the physical embodiment of drive and follow-through; an ordered, destructive force who comes crashing into Max’s life. Vincent does just as much to terrorize the cabbie as he does to motivate internal growth in him as a by-product of rigorous if dubious morality and meddling curiosity.

Vincent, played by a top-of-his-game Tom Cruise in Collateral , is a hitman attempting the impressive feat of executing five targets over the course of a single night. The Cruise + Foxx duo would be enough to solidify the Collateral movie cast, but there are also supporting roles for Jada Pinkett Smith, Mark Ruffalo, and Javier Bardem.

Vincent enlists Max as his personal chauffeur for the night, at first through bribery and later through force. As the hits progress, Max is drawn deeper and deeper into the criminal underworld of Los Angeles. This video excellently breaks down this relationship between protagonist and antagonist and the way Collateral tackles it.

Video essay examining the BAFTA nominated Collateral film script

This is a supremely stylish film. In Collateral , Michael Mann’s trademark visual flair is at its peak. The “neon-noir” aesthetic that Mann first played around with in his debut feature, Thief from 1981, is refined to near-perfection in Collateral . The “cool factor” is through the roof. For more movies like Collateral , take a look at our list of the best Neo-Noir films .

Tom Cruise Collateral film

Collateral is contained yet sprawling.

The scope of the movie Collateral is at once both largely sprawling and remarkably contained. The majority of the Collateral film is spent within the tight confines of an LA taxicab with our two main characters, and the entire Collateral movie cast consists of just three or four major players.

So, how does such as a restrained setup manage to play out in a way that feels grand in scale?

Tom Cruise in Collateral movie • Beautiful bokeh of LA lights

The Collateral movie functions as a tour of Los Angeles by night. From the empty sodium vapor streets to the neon-bathed bokeh , gang-run nightclubs, Collateral revels in showcasing the seedier side of Los Angeles that often goes unexplored on camera. Check out our rundown of unique filmmaking locations around LA that you can make use of in your own filmmaking projects.

To hear Michael Mann himself discuss the locations and other aspects, check out this behind the scenes on the making of Collateral .

Thorough behind the scenes documenting of Collateral

The location scouting step of Pre-Production is extremely important to Michael Mann’s creative process. He shoots as much as possible on-location rather than on sets. Mann is known to film pieces of an individual scene across a dozen different locations, combining them in the edit into the ideal location to suit his directorial vision.

Mann found the perfect overpass for this Collateral movie scene

The texture of a location informs character, tone, and substance in Mann’s films. With LA previously in Heat or in Chicago for Thief , the moonlit city streets as viewed through the cab’s windows are a real highlight of the Collateral film.

Ad Astra Movie Review →
Road to Perdition Revisited →
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Tom Cruise hitman movie - Collateral 2004

The action: quality over quantity.

For an action-thriller, the amount of action in Collateral is certainly on the low side. One could argue that the premise of a hitman carrying out five executions in a single night should make for more action, but what action is there, is expertly handled. For a rundown of great action films, check out the best action films ever made .

In Collateral , Michael Mann takes a "quality over quantity" approach to action sequences. Mann’s films might not be full of straight-up action films, but he has proven himself to be a master of the cinematic gunfight.

His magnum opus of action scenes, the street-bound cops vs robbers battle in Heat , stands tall as one of best, if not the best, action shootouts of all time. Collateral and Heat both made it onto our list of the best crime films . See what other movies like Collateral made the cut.

None of the action in Collateral is as big or jaw dropping as the centerpiece shootout in Heat. But Mann transferred his experiences making Heat into a smaller, more compact form that suits the story of the movie.

While making Heat , Mann realized that he preferred the diegetic sound of the real blanks being fired on the crowded LA streets over anything his sound designers could whip up. The authentic audio captured of the deafening gun blasts echoing off the high-rises was unlike any previously heard movie gunshots.

This added a new layer of realism and bombastic intensity to Heat , a layer which Mann carried over into the sound design of Collateral .

Tom Cruise as Vincent • Dispatching thugs with extreme efficiency

The action is both sparse and brief but carried out with a strong sense of realism that it is felt by the audience in a visceral way. The shootouts are short and punchy and more realistic than 99% of action films. Mann enlisted the same weapons and tactics trainer that he used in preparing the cast for Heat to train Tom Cruise in Collateral .

Cruise trained with live ammunition and rehearsed the choreography relentlessly for three months prior to shooting. All of that preparation truly paid off in the way he handles himself on camera.

Orchestrated chaos in a gang-run nightclub • Collateral (2004)

Mann’s extensive preparation regimens were put in place for the rest of the cast as well. Jamie Foxx spent countless hours driving with real cab drivers as well as practicing high-speed driving. And Mark Ruffalo, who plays a vice Detective, underwent similar extensive weapons training as Cruise, despite the fact his character never once fires his gun in the film.

Some of Mann’s directorial quirks and requirements could be labeled as excessive but, for him, it all builds to a heightened sense of authenticity in the character which is reflected in the performances.

Collateral movie ending

Expertly crafted, yet not flawless.

Not all is perfect within Collateral . There are a few minor issues, such as a handful of odd soundtrack choices and a couple of moments where the picture quality is just a touch below ideal. This is most likely due to about 80% of the movie being shot on digital when it was still finding its footing. Mann even went as far as to claim that Collateral was one of the first movies to attempt a stylistic “look” using digital video.

There are a couple of more significant flaws in Collateral as well, unfortunately. While the performances never falter, there are a handful of exchanges between Max and Vincent that require a high level of suspension of disbelief. It could be a challenge to take in stride the expository chats between them when the conversation turns casual and the antagonism subsides.

The other major disappointment lies in the ending. While the closing line and final images are well handled, the overall ending concludes with a fizzle rather than a bang. It's a letdown in the action department, feels overly familiar and requires more suspension of disbelief.

The following video essay offers an alternate view of the ending and an exploration on the role of masculinity in Collateral .

Collateral movie ending and themes analysed by Storytellers

Luckily, these issues are nowhere near enough to hamper the overall effectiveness of the film.

Collateral film

Elevated by outstanding performances.

While the plot of Collateral is tight and efficient, it isn’t the most daring or innovating script out there. Where the script excels is in the character department. It drills deeper into both the protagonist and the antagonist than one might expect from similar action-thriller films.

As a protagonist, Max is just complicated enough to be interesting and thoroughly likable. We want him to make it out of his unenviable situation and are on board for the escalating decisions he makes.

But for as good as Jamie Foxx is, the show is completely stolen by Tom Cruise as the villainous Vincent. This is without a doubt one of his best roles. The character on the page is already complex and intriguing, but Cruise adds multiple layers of depth and nuance that elevate the character and the film.

If there is a single reason to watch Collateral , it’s for Vincent.

One of Cruise’s best performances

Collateral was a departure for both leads. The role of Max arrived at a time when Jamie Foxx was best known for his comedy, not a dramatic leading man. Collateral landed in theaters just two months before his Oscar-winning performance in Ray .

For Tom Cruise, Collateral was quite the departure as well. Usually the leading-man good guy, this is one of the few films where Cruise goes against type for the “bad guy” role. Cruise also had a makeover to his usual look as well, which helped him disappear into character.

This scene is a strong showcase for both actors, not just as individuals but as a two-hander. The push and pull between them displays great chemistry and the balance professional actors bring to their job.

A showcase for both actors

Michael Mann believes in understanding even the smallest details of a character’s life regardless of whether those details make it into the film or not. In Collateral , Michael Mann wrote extensive biographies for both Max and Vincent. These covered the characters’ entire lives up until the beginning of the film, complete with anecdotes from childhood and photographs of where they grew up. It’s a complex way to imbue potentially simple, surface-level characters with a great deal more depth.

Road to Perdition Revisited

Collateral shines as one of the best films of the action-thriller sub-genre. The film’s legacy is well-deserved and it is essential viewing for any cinephile. If you enjoyed our look back at Collateral , then check out our revisiting of Sam Mendes’s Road to Perdition , a stylish Neo-Noir with memorable characters and set pieces.

Up Next: Perdition revisited →

I think, like ‘Day of the Jackal’, ‘Collateral’ was a forerunner to the greatest of them all; the perfection that is ‘the Australian homegrown ‘Animal Kingdom’.

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Collateral Ending Explained: A Cab And Subway Ride Through 21st-Century Existence

Forget everything you think you know about Michael Mann 's "Collateral," and just think of it as a movie about work culture and 21st-century life, framed through the lens of cab driving and contract killing. Through this reading, the title can be understood as a reference to humans as collateral damage. Mann explored a similar subject in "The Insider," a seven-time Oscar-nominated film about a whistleblower exposing a tobacco company for purposefully making its cigarettes more addictive. In "Collateral," he and screenwriter Stuart Beattie simply went about it in a more indirect, action-oriented manner.

The surface-level plot of "Collateral" is easy enough to follow and describe in 25 words: hitman Vincent ( Tom Cruise ) forces cabbie Max (Jamie Foxx) to drive him around L.A. at night as he crosses off names on his kill list. Thematically, there's a lot more to the film than that.

Taken as a mere action thriller, the ending of "Collateral" might not need explaining, per se, but maybe it's worth reexamining with a deeper interpretation in mind. This is a movie with some meat on its bones where subtext is concerned. It emerges in the dialogue, the character roles, and the twists and turns of the plot: all of which go toward a metaphorical examination of the failure of the American dream for working-class individuals like Max, and the potential breakdown of the social order at the hands of morally grey-collared professionals like Vincent.

"Collateral" has two other key supporting characters: the federal prosecutor Annie (Jada Pinkett Smith) and the LAPD detective Ray (Mark Ruffalo). Annie and Ray represent law and order, which Vincent threatens with a resolve as steely as his suit and hair. Let's start the meter now — and do note the spoilers light on top of this yellow cab.

The dream of Island Limos

"Collateral" breaks into its third act with a car crash. After riding around with him all night, murdering people, Vincent has turned Max's whole life and worldview upside down, so Max returns the favor by running red lights and flipping the cab.

What pushes Max to his breaking point is a monologue Vincent delivers right before this, where he dismantles Max's dream of someday owning his own company, Island Limos. At the beginning of the movie, we saw how Max kept a postcard of a tropical island in the sun visor above his driver's seat. It's the classic image that an office worker might have on their wall calendar to inspire them through the doldrums of their job.

Max's office, as it were, just happens to be one on wheels. He was doing mobile work, or remote work, before it was in-fashion. Released in 2004, "Collateral" positions Max as the face of the century to come, someone whose job comes with no retirement or health benefits and whose boss is just a voice on the radio, all too ready to "extort a working man," as Vincent puts it.

Vincent suggests unionizing, but Max tells himself this job is temporary. The only problem is, he's been doing it for 12 years. This leaves him stuck in a routine where all he does is talk about his dream to other people. He develops a good rapport with Annie, so he's willing to share it with her and even give her the postcard, which leaves him with her business card in its place. However, with Vincent, Max is more guarded, perhaps because Vincent can see right through all of his dreamer-but-not-a-doer "bulls***."

'Nobody knows each other'

Foxx won the Oscar for Best Actor for his 2004 performance in "Ray" — a biopic where he had his eyes glued shut to play blind musician Ray Charles — but he also received a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role that year as Max in "Collateral." In a lot of ways, Max is a more relatable character because he's an everyman, not a bonafide musical genius. The same could be said of one of Vincent's targets, a jazz club owner named Daniel (Barry Shabaka Henley), who met Miles Davis and had the night of his life jamming with him before he got drafted into the war and life happened, derailing his dream of being a musician.

To hear Max's mother Ida (Irma P. Hall) tell it, he's living his own dream already. She thinks he's got his limo company set up and drives famous people around because that's the image he lets her take from their interactions. "Max never had many friends," Ida reveals to Vincent in the hospital. "Always talking to his self in the mirror. It's unhealthy."

Though internet culture was not ubiquitous yet and the technology we see in "Collateral" is that of flip phones and flash drives, this side of Max's character somewhat anticipated the rise of social media and people's tendency to publicly curate their selves for an attentive audience that may or may not exist.

Speaking of the Greater Los Angeles area as a microcosm for the country, Max says, "17 million people ... and nobody knows each other." He sees the world changing and says, "We gotta make the best of it, improvise, adapt to the environment." Yet his idea of that is to coldly execute tasks and execute people.

The illusion of progress

Throughout "Collateral," we see Max getting in touch with his inner Vincent, reusing lines he's heard from Cruise's character to stand up for himself. Early on, when Vincent remarks to Max, "You're one of these guys that do instead of talk," there's a mocking edge to it, though, because we know that's not true about Max.

While waiting for the stars to align and everything to be "perfect," Max has become one of the plebeians Vincent describes who, after a decade-plus, is still stuck in the "same job, same place, same routine." Though he's always on the go, always moving, always working, Max is really just driving in circles around L.A., making no forward progress on his dream. This is what leads Vincent to finally dress him down before "Collateral" moves out of the two-man taxi, where Max chauffeurs him around, and into the mass transit system of the subway, where they're both passengers. To Max, it's a devastating personal takedown when Vincent says:

"Someday. Someday my dream will come. One night, you'll wake up and you'll discover it never happened. It's all turned around on you, and it never will. Suddenly, you are old. Didn't happen, and it never will. Because you were never going to do it, anyway. You'll push it into memory, then zone out in your BarcaLounger, being hypnotized by daytime TV for the rest of your life. Don't you talk to me about murder. All it ever took was a down payment on a Lincoln Town Car. Or that girl. You can't even call that girl. What the f*** are you still doing driving a cab?"

When success outstrips humanity

Described variously as a "badass sociopath" and "meat-eater super-assassin," Vincent represents the goal-oriented professional, driven to succeed no matter who he hurts. The last words out of his mouth before Max improbably outguns him at the end of "Collateral" are "I do this for a living."

Right up until the end, Vincent is laser-focused on his work, to the exclusion of all else, even basic human empathy. By his own admission, he's "indifferent" to the plight of others. As Max observes, Vincent lacks "the standard parts that are supposed to be there in people." He's a contract worker, a killer, who operates in the private sector and doesn't get any paid sick leave.

"I don't meet people," Vincent states. His current boss, Felix Reyes-Torrena (Javier Bardem), doesn't even know what he looks like. They've never had a face-to-face conversation, which allows Max to pose as Vincent and stand up to another boss who is ready to terminate his employee (in the Arnold Schwarzenegger sense of "terminate") the minute that employee brings a problem before him.

The problem is that Vincent has lost his list, all the intel on his targets, thanks to Max throwing it over the side of a pedestrian bridge onto the freeway. Since Vincent is just an independent contractor and not a real employee, Reyes-Torrena expects him to sort things out himself. "Sorry does not put Humpty Dumpty back together again."

Vincent's fate is foreshadowed early in "Collateral" with the anecdote he shares about a guy who died on the subway and rode around on it for six hours before anyone noticed. This comes right after he calls L.A. "too sprawled out, disconnected," a line where he could just as easily be talking about modern society in general.

Society and the individual

With his slicked-back hair and goatee, Ruffalo's character, Ray, almost seems like a cop out of another Mann movie — "Miami Vice," maybe. "Collateral" builds him up as a ray (ha) of hope, and you think he's going to come to the rescue, but instead, his death becomes the script's All Is Lost moment. To Vincent, a character motivated by success at the expense of human life, this guy with a badge barely registers. That's why he guns Ray down like he's nothing, as if to casually break the whole law in the form of one man.

What's one person's death weighed against Rwandan genocide and six billion people on the planet? This is the mentality Vincent brings with him into the U.S. Attorney's offices at the end of "Collateral." His presence there endangers the very fabric of society. Max can see the collapse playing out in real time; he's on the phone with Max's last surprise target, Annie, watching as Vincent comes for her through the windows. Only when Max steps up and the dreamer takes action is he able to forestall her death and his own.

The camera in "Collateral" often takes on a God's-eye view, looking straight down from the night sky at Max's cab as it moves through the streets. The law won't save the day down there; it's too easily broken. And as we see in "Collateral," beeping the horn for help only attracts the attention of muggers.

"Take comfort in knowing you never had a choice," Vincent tells him. Yet in the end, Max does have a choice. He can be the change he wants to see. In "Collateral," the responsibility of jumpstarting one's dream and preserving order falls not on outside forces or institutions, but on the individual.

Collateral: Looking Back at Tom Cruise's Underrated Villainous Performance

Michael Mann's Collateral has one of the strangest things in Hollywood: a movie where Tom Cruise plays the villain. Here's why the film is great.

Vincent (Tom Cruise) is a contract killer in Los Angles for one night to eliminate five targets who are going to declare in a grand-jury case. Max (Jamie Foxx) is a taxi driver with grandeur dreams of having a limousine business. Vincent gets in the cab and decides that Vincent is going to be his ride for the whole night. Their cat-and-mouse game starts there and doesn’t stop until the end of the movie. That’s the story of Collateral , one of the best Michael Mann movies, with Tom Cruise’s best villainous performance, and here’s why:

Tom Cruise, the Villain

For most of his career, Tom Cruise has played heroes . That’s why it is so interesting when he decides to play complicated, gray characters ( Eyes Wide Shut, Magnolia, Born on the Fourth of July ), or evil characters ( Interview with the Vampire, Collateral ). We would’ve liked to see more of this side of Cruise, as his whole acting style changes and makes him a more interesting actor. In Collateral , Vincent is methodical, charismatic, and pragmatic, using all the qualities that make Cruise a star for evil. He wears all gray to try to be, well... gray and unmemorable, but that’s impossible. Tom Cruise's acting sometimes looks like someone trying to act as a human, and in this movie, that’s a benefit, as Vincent is trying to act like a human to be less menacing, and more mundane. At least until the first kill in the movie happens, and then we see the devil behind all that grayness, and Cruise having fun: “improvise, adapt to the environment, Darwin, sh*t happens, I Ching, whatever man, roll with it…” Vincent tells Max, as it was Cruise talking about shooting the scene.

His character (as most by Cruise and all by Mann) knows he’s the best at what he does, and this night will present him with a challenge that will help sharpen his always-great skills. Vincent is the devil, and as so, he first has to be conniving and seductive, and Cruise nails that part of his character. Mann and Cruise together in a movie is a match made in movie heaven. They both go all-in in the preparation of their characters. Cruise had all kinds of training to prepare for the movie, and Mann had an extensive history of the character; well-thought-out, even if it doesn't appear in the movie. Of Cruise’s gray look, Michael Mann told Entertainment Weekly : “I saw Tom as all steely, and the visual for that was silver hair and a tight gray suit. The man he’s playing is erudite, well-read, and [his] sociopathy is total. With Tom, you don’t get what you hear from a lot of movie stars, which is ”Don’t move me out of my range, what I bring to every movie I do.”

Related: Tom Cruise’s Best Drama Movies, Ranked

Foxx vs Cruise: Incredible Acting Fight

Michael Mann loves heavyweight fights between two actors at their peaks. It's spectacularly shown with Pacino and De Niro in Heat , but it also happens in Collatera l. Cruise was still in one of his best moments, working with Spielberg, and still wanting to get challenged by movies; before he became a stuntman ready to die for entertainment (we love the Mission Impossible movies, and we’ll be the first in line at the cinema, but his acting in those movies is no challenge). Jamie Foxx had already shot Ray, but the world hadn’t seen it yet, so he was still trying to prove that he was much more than a comic actor . Both actors were at the perfect moment to be opposed to each other in this movie, and as in tennis, playing against a great opponent makes you top your game. With a few scenes in his cab, Mann artfully presents to us who Max is; smart, observant, with a big dream, and good at his job. That’s why Vincent uses him, and that’s why he becomes the best foil for our bad guy. Foxx's character isn’t cool (the greatest trick Foxx plays on us is to get us to believe he’s not cool), but he’s resourceful and has a moral code. That’s why the conflict between both characters and actors is so interesting. They’re not that different, except for the killing, a duality Mann always loves to play, showing they might be two sides of the same coin.

Once the conflict is set, the movie never stops (literally) as there are four more killings to get to, creating a strange, scary tour of L.A. Both lead actors are great, but at those stops is when we see the incredible cast Mann has selected for the movie and, in small roles, they shine. Javier Bardem might only have a scene, but what a scene ; it could be said that it's the best of the movie, as the menacing Mexican who has his own way of looking at life. The same has to be said about Barry Shabaka Henley and the scene in the nightclub. We can see the moment he understands he’s about to die and how his whole body, face, and mannerisms change in just a second. Jada Pinkett Smith is sexy in her first scene with Max in the cab, and we understand their connection almost instantly, even if at the end, she’s a little bit too much of a damsel in distress. And then there’s Mark Ruffalo as the detective; he’s never looked so sleazy, with an earring and his hair all gelled back. Ruffalo always looks like a smart professor (one of the things that made him great for the Hulk), and here you can believe he has an ex-wife who never gets her alimony payments in time. The moment he dies is also surprising, as we understand Collateral is a different movie, one without heroes, and Max will have to survive this hellish night by himself. Even the Jason Statham cameo leaves us with questions. Is this his Transporter character? Probably, but we’ll never know for sure.

Related: Best Films Set in Los Angeles, Ranked

Michael Mann’s Brilliance

Michael Mann is an obsessive, brilliant director who always loves to make movies about men who are great at their job, but who don’t have that much more out of it. They only really live when they work, and the rest is blurry: romantic partners, friends, holidays, those don’t matter as much, and their personal hell would be spending too much time in those worlds. And Collateral is no different. Both Vincent and Max live and breathe their jobs, one of the reasons that makes them such good pairs in the movie. In another world (where Vincent is no killer, or Max's morals are less important), this could’ve been a buddy movie, as both characters get to understand each other, but here they’re rivals.

Mann loved the script because “the whole movie is like the third act of a traditional drama”. We only catch this guy on this specific day and moment in time. With those ingredients, Mann could obsess on the small details that make him a unique director and try new things. This was the first film in which Mann (or really any A-list Hollywood director actually) used high-def video instead of film stock. Mann has said that to capture the silhouettes of L.A. at night, celluloid wouldn’t have worked. Also, there's coherence in the route the cab takes; something that is usually not that important for directors as long as it makes for a good shot; creating Mann’s second-best movie, Heat, almost thirty years later, it’s still his best.

Under the Radar: ‘Collateral’ is the second greatest movie about a taxi driver

October 5, 2023
Kyle Quinlan

Vincent (Tom Cruise) is a contract killer who hijacks a taxicab and its driver, Max (Jamie Foxx), for a job in DreamWorks Pictures’ and Paramount Pictures’ dramatic thriller “Collateral”, directed by Michael Mann. (PRNewsFoto/via TNS)

Under The Radar is a weekly film column that highlights underappreciated and overlooked movies of the past. Graphic credit: Kyle Quinlan

“Collateral” (2004)

Genre: Crime/Thriller Starring: Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith Director: Michael Mann

Tom Cruise. Jamie Foxx. One night. One taxicab. What more could viewers want from a neo-noir classic?

Taking place over one bustling night in Los Angeles, “Collateral” follows a taxi driver, Max (Jamie Foxx), whose mundane shift is interrupted when a mysteriously confident man, Vincent (Tom Cruise), hails down his cab.

Vincent offers Max a hefty sum to drive him around the city all night, making a handful of business-related stops. Unable to turn down the money, Max agrees to be Vincent’s personal chauffeur for the evening — and just like that, the madness begins as Vincent’s “line of work” quickly reveals itself.

Why “Collateral” is a Must-Watch

Cruise has been one of Hollywood’s biggest movie stars for years; however, there is debate if “Collateral” is a “Cruise” movie or a “ Foxx” movie. Any time Cruise can be considered second fiddle in a film, it’s an absolute must-watch.

This is what “Collateral” is at its core — Cruise and Foxx working together like yin and yang and giving quality performances. Filled with several amazing action sequences and suspenseful scenes, what makes the movie so brilliant is the moments between the chaos: the relationship and brutally honest conversations between Max and Vincent.

The constant insults and witty banter, the opposing life philosophies and the obvious physical threats that test the pair create a captivating “road trip” dynamic. Not to mention the silver fox, Cruise, who embraces his dark side while sporting a sleek, gray suit and platinum-colored hair.

The supporting cast knocks it out of the park as well, with many actors having little screen time but nevertheless giving fantastic performances.

Jada Pinkett Smith portrays Annie, the beautifully hard-nosed lawyer Max drives around as a client at the beginning of the film. Foxx and Pinkett Smith deliver an absolute master class in chemistry, providing an all-time flirting scene. Foxx demonstrates how even as a cabbie, you can woo someone way out of your league with just a little bit of confidence, charisma and an extensive knowledge of road geography.

Setting the romantic mood, “Hands of Time” by Groove Armada soothingly plays in the background, making it hard to believe that Foxx and Pinkett Smith did not get married immediately after filming.

Mark Ruffalo portrays Detective Ray Fanning, a cop hot on the trail of suspicious activity in the streets tied to the criminal underground. Obsessed with finding connections between crimes and coincidences, Fanning does whatever he needs to catch his target.

Guest spots from actors like Jason Statham and Javier Bardem keep audience members on their toes, providing some heavy-hitting acting and electrifying scene-stealing.

The Reception, The Legacy

IMDb: 7.5/10 Letterboxd: 3.8/5 Rotten Tomatoes: 86 percent

Raking in over $220 million from the worldwide box office — with a budget of $65 million — “Collateral” was quite popular among audiences and critics at the time of its release.

The film is no cookie-cutter thriller, containing much more than the explosions and fistfights audiences are used to; instead, “Collateral” focuses on its characters and the emotional journey they ride through a crazy night.

Receiving Oscar nominations for Best Film Editing and Best Supporting Actor (Foxx), “Collateral” sadly went home empty-handed at the 77th Academy Awards.

However, Foxx did bring home some hardware in the Best Actor category for his unbelievable performance as Ray Charles in “Ray.” This is one of the 12 times in Oscar history where an actor/actress was nominated in two different categories in the same year.

The box office numbers, nominations and high praise from critics might suggest this is a beloved movie, but the film’s legacy seems to be undervalued and hidden on the movie shelves of the only Blockbuster left.

Similar Movies

Those who enjoy the “one crazy night” structure should check out “Training Day,” starring Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke, for a film that feels like a fraternal twin to “Collateral.” The Safdie Brothers’ “Good Time,” starring Robert Pattinson, also serves as a more modern film in the subgenre.

Anyone interested in seeing Cruise play a character different from his typical roles can watch “Magnolia” for a strange and conflicted performance as T.J Mackey. Martin Scorsese’s pool drama, “The Color of Money,” sees Cruise as a different Vincent — literally wearing a shirt that says “Vincent” — a goofy kid who’s not exactly the smartest guy in the room.

If you want to dive into director Mann’s filmography, “Heat” is the next watch if you haven’t already. The undeniable cat-and-mouse crime epic, starring Pacino and Robert De Niro, is regarded as a top movie of all time and is a must-watch. If you dig his style, “Thief,” “Manhunter” and “Miami Vice” are all great movies that showcase his slick dealings in criminal life, with “Miami Vice” being his most accessible if Mann isn’t your cup of tea.

Hopefully after watching “Collateral,” viewers will understand the frustrations with the Academy snubbing it of a Best Picture nomination.

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Cruise, Foxx, Mann Collaborate on 'Collateral'

Kenneth Turan

Tom Cruise in 'Collateral' Dreamworks hide caption

Tom Cruise plays the bad guy in Collateral , a new film by director Michael Mann, who employs a creative soundtrack and stunning digital cinematography. Jamie Foxx co-stars as a cab driver caught up in the action. Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan offers a review.

Collateral (2004)

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10 of the Best Movies About Cab Drivers

Vote for the best movies about cab drivers or predominately featuring cab drivers.

From the bustling streets of urban jungles to the circuitous alignments of destiny, movies about cab drivers invite audiences into the front seat of enthralling narratives that unfold kilometer after kilometer. Meanwhile, movies about taxi drivers often serve as a microcosm of society, presenting a world where diverse human stories collide amidst the city's pulse. These films, curated by movie experts and crowdranked by film enthusiasts, offer a panoramic view from behind the steering wheel, revealing thrilling escapades, poignant connections, and the raw truths of life that play out in the rearview mirror.

Taxi drivers form the unlikely nucleus of a wheeling, transient society, meeting strangers and narratives as fleeting and varied as the city's traffic lights. The following cinematic journey has been crafted to guide you through the labyrinth of lanes that these chauffeurs navigate, both literally and metaphorically. From tales of the comedic to the tragic, the mundane to the bizarre, these selections represent the crème de la crème of films where a cab driver is not just a character but a conduit to a larger examination of humanity. Buckle up as we cruise through the cinematic roads less traveled, where every meter flags down another story waiting to be told.

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Powerful but violent thriller -- not for kids.

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The weird way tom cruise prepared for his collateral role.

Tom Cruise played an icy assassin in Michael Mann's 2004 thriller Collateral, and here are the strange ways he prepared to play a killer.

Tom Cruise prepared for his assassin role in Collateral in some bizarre ways, including posing as a delivery man. The 2000s saw Cruise gradually slip from an actor who jumped between different genres - as he had done throughout the '80s and '90s - and focusing largely on action roles. Mission: Impossible 2 seems to have inspired this, as not only was the sequel an enormous success but Cruise was praised for performing most of his own stunts.

Many of his follow-up projects like Minority Report or The Last Samurai featured heavy action elements, as did 2004's Collateral . This Michael Mann-helmed thriller cast Cruise in a rare villainous role as Vincent, an icy hitman who forces Jamie Foxx's cab driver Max - a role Adam Sandler turned down - to drive him around L.A. as he commits five killings. Cruise and Foxx both received praise for their work, with the film being both an absorbing character drama and a slick thriller.

Related: Every Tom Cruise Movie Where His Character Dies

Both Mann and Cruise are well-known for doing heavy amounts of research and prep for their projects, but obviously in the case of Collateral's Vincent, this posed a problem. Cruise wasn't going to learn how to become a professional killer through firsthand experience, so both star and director had to get a little creative in their approach. A major part of Vincent's method is to go about his work without drawing attention to himself or being recognized, so on that front, Cruise went undercover as a USP courier.

Tom Cruise Became A Courier To Learn How To Blend In

Watch The Video Here

According to the special features on Collateral (which may be an unofficial Transporter movie) the object of this exercise was for Cruise to enter a crowded place - in this case, L.A.'s Central Market - and deliver a package without anybody noticing him. Mann stated that the star is instantly recognizable from his voice down to the way he walks, so he wanted to test and see if Cruise could just blend into a crowd like Vincent. The star can be seen in the above video delivering a FedEx package - complete with his Last Samurai hair and beard - and later striking up a conversation with nobody realizing it's Tom Cruise.

According to a Q&A with Mann in 2019 (via Russ Fischer ), he also trained Cruise with mock assassination exercises. Mann - who produced forgotten gem Band Of The Hand - would select people from his office for the actor to stalk, so he could learn their patterns and "kill" them by slapping a post-it note with " You're Dead " written on it. While these exercises were certainly unorthodox, the end result is that Cruise gave one of his best performances in Collateral , so there was a method to the madness.

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Powerful but violent thriller -- not for kids.

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What's the story.

In COLLATERAL, Max (Jamie Foxx) is a cab driver who begins his shift by wiping off the dashboard and putting his favorite picture on the visor. He takes his job seriously. Vince (Tom Cruise) offers Max $600 to stay with him all night, through five stops. Max turns him down at first; it's against the rules. But then he says yes. He takes the fare to his first stop. Vince goes inside while Max waits for him. And then a dead body hits the roof of his cab. Vince is a hit man, and the five stops are people he has been hired to kill. Can Max save any of them? Can he save himself?

Is It Any Good?

As cool as a jazz riff from a tenor sax, this stylish and powerful thriller has it all. It boasts consistently absorbing characters, twisty dialogue and an even twistier story, and action that engages the heart as it thumps a little faster. Director Mann uses a silvery blue palette and spare, reflective, glass-filled settings to keep the mood as cool as moonlight. Both Jada Pinkett Smith and Mark Ruffalo are endlessly watchable, giving their characters subtlety and context to make us care far out of proportion to their time onscreen.

Foxx is turning into a performer of great presence and depth and he makes a convincing leading man. Cruise is a little out of his range but that works oddly well for Vince, giving him a little frisson of uncertainty underneath the Terminator-like singlemindedness of the character. And Cruise has moments of brilliance. He even runs in character, completely focused but so in each moment that he does not try to pace himself. He puts everything he has into each step forward.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Vince's ability to compartmentalize. He says he did not kill one of the victims, "the bullet and the fall killed him." Notice the way that Vince is always to the left of Max except in one scene. Which scene is that and why? What were Max's options? What is the meaning of the title? Who or what serves as collateral?

Movie Details

In theaters : August 5, 2004
On DVD or streaming : December 13, 2004
Cast : Jada Pinkett Smith , Jamie Foxx , Tom Cruise
Director : Michael Mann
Inclusion Information : Female actors, Black actors
Studio : DreamWorks
Genre : Drama
Topics : Cars and Trucks
Run time : 100 minutes
MPAA rating : R
MPAA explanation : violence and language
Last updated : December 17, 2023

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Ranking The Top 26 Best Tom Cruise Films Ever Made

Posted: April 24, 2024 | Last updated: April 24, 2024

<em>Far and Away</em> was slammed by critics in 1992 for being a shallow, simplistic American epic. There’s some truth there, as director Ron Howard seems more interested in telling a weepy love story than he is in actually examining this particular period of history. However, that also sells short everything else the film has to offer. It’s beautifully shot, particularly the final land grab sequence. The score is memorable and moving. Cruise and Kidman’s natural chemistry elevates an otherwise very old-fashioned romance story. This isn’t anyone’s <em>best</em> work, but it's still worth revisiting. You just have to look past Cruise’s very, very, very bad Irish accent.

26. Far & Away (1992)

Credit to <em>Oblivion</em> for attempting to do something new -- even if the whole thing feels wholly familiar. It's a kind of pastiche of the genre. The movie is visually stunning and the effects are great. However, as the story begins to lay out its cards, you realize that it's all in service to an unsatisfying narrative. Tom Cruise is fine here playing a familiar version of Tom Cruise, but that’s not enough to elevate this above being a somewhat enjoyable but extremely average science fiction movie.

25. Oblivion (2013)

They weren’t trying to reinvent the wheel with this one. Tony Scott teams back up with Tom Cruise to essentially remake <em>Top Gun,</em> trading out fighter jets for stock cars. It doesn’t quite reach the same heights as their first outing, but there’s still a lot of good here. The supporting cast is fantastic, bringing depth to what were pretty stock characters on the page, and every scene with Cruise behind the wheel is thrilling. It’s arguably one of the best racing films ever made. <br> <br> <em>Days of Thunder</em> is dumb, loud and tons of fun.

24. Days of Thunder (1990)

Tom Cruise earned his first Oscar nomination for his performance in <em>Born on the 4th of July.</em> It totally makes sense -- as this is exactly the kind of role that the Academy notices. It is a BIG swing from Cruise, and he spends the entire 145-minute runtime capital 'A' acting. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie doesn’t live up to his performance. Oliver Stone is completely unsubtle and heavy-handed here (even for him), and leaves us with an experience that is ultimately less than the sum of its parts. This is a good movie that should have been great.

23. Born on the 4th of July (1989)

<em>Interview With a Vampire</em> is more of a vibe than a movie. Credit not only to Director Neil Jordan but also to the cinematographer, production designer and costume designers for creating a gothic feast for the eyes. The strong tone and sense of place is probably why this is one of the few performances where Tom Cruise is actually able to (at times) disappear into his role. There are moments where we are not watching Tom Cruise the movie star -- but rather the seductive vampire Lestat. <br> <br> Good thing, too, since there isn’t much of an actual plot.

22. Interview With a Vampire (1994)

If you made a “best of” list for the <em>Mission: Impossible</em> franchise, <em>Mission: Impossible 3</em> would chart near the bottom. It’s still an above-average action thriller, but the latter entries in the series have topped it in nearly every way. <br> <br> I say <em>nearly</em> because <em>Mission: Impossible 3</em> happens to have the most compelling villain that has ever crossed Ethan Hunt and the IMF. We see the villain in the form of a ruthless arms dealer portrayed by the inimitable Philip Seymour Hoffman. He brings such an intensity to the performance that even scenes where he’s monologuing are as tense and thrilling as any sequence where Cruise jumps out of a plane. That’s reason enough to seek out this movie.

21. Mission: Impossible III (2006)

Tom Cruise’s second collaboration with writer-director Cameron Crowe, <em>Vanilla Sky,</em> is a tough movie to pin down. I’ve seen it called an “erotic science fiction thriller"...only it's not very erotic -- and the science fiction is introduced very late in the game. There are some nice performances here, and Crowe knows how to write deeply human characters. However, the movie seems less interested in them than it is in teasing the audience with its mind-bending twist. For some, <em>Vanilla Sky</em> is an instant favorite. For others, it's a forgettable snooze.

20. Vanilla Sky (2001)

There aren’t many new ideas in <em>The Last Samurai,</em> but it is still a solid period epic that explores the tension between tradition and modernity. The film seems to take great care in trying to portray late 1800s Japanese culture as accurately as it can, and it manages to mostly avoid falling into that western romanticized trap. The cast is solid. Credit to Ken Watanabe who not only turns in a stellar performance but also comes off as an equal to Cruise. None of this works if Watanabe gets overshadowed by the sheer star power of his co-star.

19. The Last Samurai (2003)

Let’s set aside to what extent Dustin Hoffman’s performance is or isn’t problematic. Simply taken as a piece of acting, it hasn’t aged particularly well. Perhaps it's because “Raymond” has been parodied to death, but the whole thing comes off as very one-note and unobserved. Thankfully (despite all of the accolades going to Hoffman) <em>Rain Man</em> is Tom Cruise’s movie, and he is fantastic in it. Cruise weaponizes both his inherent smarminess and infinite charisma to get us to hate -- and then slowly understand the deep flaws in this human being. <em>Rain Man</em> is a flawed but mostly enjoyable road movie.

18. Rain Man (1988)

This is the fifth entry in the franchise, and the first directed by longtime Cruise collaborator Christopher McQuarrie. It’s the one with the Vienna Opera House sequence. It has the moment where Ethan Hunt hangs off of an airplane as it takes off. How about that motorcycle chase on the Marrakesh Highway? I’ll never forget the underwater stunt where Ethan retrieves a computer chip. It's insane that Cruise performs most of these stunts himself.

17. Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation (2015)

There are moments in Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of <em>War of the Worlds</em> that stay with you long after the movie ends. The panic on the Hudson River ferry, the sea of humanity that swarms our lead family’s van, Tom Cruise covered in ash evoking memories of 9/11. It is at times as much a horror film as it is action sci-fi. It’s nearly the perfect alien invasion movie until it enters the 3rd act and limps to the finish (the source material has a clever but cinematically disappointing conclusion). It’s also a nice change of pace for Cruise, who typically plays someone who is the best at their chosen field. Here, he’s not the best at anything, just a regular guy trying his best to be a decent father.

16. War of the Worlds (2005)

This is the fourth entry in the franchise and is adroitly directed by Brad Bird. It’s the one where they infiltrate the Kremlin and then later it explodes. It has the scene where Ethan Hunt has to free-climb the Burj Khalifa. How about that chase through the middle of a sandstorm? I’ll never forget when Hunt runs down the Burj Khalifa and ends up hanging out of a window. It's insane that Cruise performs most of these stunts himself.

15. Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol (2011)

There is a moment during<em> Risky Business</em> when you can actually see Tom Cruise transform from a promising 20-year-old actor to a bonafide movie star. No, it isn’t the scene you're thinking of. The most iconic scene from the film is of course Cruise sliding into the frame and dancing to Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock & Roll”. This is a moment that immediately entered pop culture and was parodied to death for decades. But the moment when Cruise truly becomes a star comes near the end of the film. Finishing a failed interview with a Princeton recruiter, he slaps on a pair of iconic Ray-Ban Wayfarers and, with a toothy grin, declares “Looks like it's the University of Illinois!” I think actual dollar signs appear on the screen. <br> <br> <em>Risky Business</em> is a solid teen comedy. Very much of it’s time. I’m not sure if it entirely holds up for modern audiences, but it's an important movie in charting Tom Cruise’s rise to fame.

14. Risky Business (1983)

Remember legal thrillers? There was a time when Hollywood would produce something like a dozen of these a year. They were typically solid, enjoyable movies made for adults. Some were better than others, a few were occasionally great. <em>The Firm</em> is an above-average entry in the genre, buoyed by one of the best casts ever assembled. There’s not a poor performance to be found in this film, and Tom Cruise anchors the proceedings as an upwardly mobile but morally conflicted young lawyer caught up in something much larger than himself. <em>The Firm</em> is also notable as having some of the finest examples of the “Tom Cruise run.”

13. The Firm (1993)

Anyone who tells you that <em>The Color of Money</em> is “mid-level Scorcese” doesn’t know what they’re talking about. I dare you to watch the opening scene of the film and not find yourself on the hook to finish. Cruise is perfectly cast as Vincent, a ball of chaotic energy/pool savant. Paul Newman is doing some of the best work of his long and esteemed career playing Fast Eddie for a second time. <br> <br> Martin Scorcese and cinematographer Michael Ballhaus are masterful, drawing us into every game and making nine-ball pool feel as exciting as a boxing match. <em>The Color of Money</em> is as good as any of Scorcese’s best films.

12. The Color of Money (1986)

<span>This is the sixth entry in the franchise, and the second directed by longtime Cruise collaborator Christopher McQuarrie. </span><span>It’s the one with the Halo jump (that they did for real). It has the moment where Ethan Hunt hangs off of a long line attached to a helicopter. How about that motorcycle chase through Paris? I’ll never forget the wild helicopter spiral in the final act. It's insane that Cruise performs most of these stunts himself. Does anyone else get the feeling that Cruise wants to die on camera?</span>

11. Mission: Impossible -- Fallout

If you stop at any time during <em>Collateral</em> to think about the story, you will realize that it is quite ridiculous. Taking place over one night, a cab driver is forced to ferry around an assassin on a killing spree -- the motivation of which connects directly to a fare the driver had picked up earlier that night. In a city as big as Los Angeles, what are the odds? What makes it all work, though, are the two central performances. Both men are playing against type, Cruise as a nihilistic hired gun and Fox as the meager everyman. They have great chemistry together, and their conversations as they move from hit to hit are engrossing. This is a slick, effective thriller with a great script (if you can get past some of the contrivances).

10. Collateral (2004)

You might also know this movie as Live. Die. Repeat. <br> <br> Whatever you want to call it, this is an incredible science-fiction action film. The movie brilliantly combines the Groundhog Day gimmick with a big-budget war film, where half the fun becomes watching all of the different ways it can manage to kill its protagonist. There’s enough humor here to keep things from getting too grim, especially as we see Tom Cruise’s incredulous public affairs officer adjust to his new reality of living like he’s playing an arcade shooter with an infinite supply of quarters. Exciting, inventive and fun. What more can you ask for?

9. Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

<em>A Few Good Men</em> is one of the great afternoon cable movies, able to grab you no matter if you’re watching from the beginning -- or you find it halfway over while flipping through channels on a lazy Sunday. The story is uncomplicated but elevated by its cracking script from Aaron Sorkin. It also has some peak performances by a murderer's row of actors. Cruise holds his own, even opposite titans like Jack Nicholson. It's a shame Tom didn’t play more military officers in his career, the man looks damn good in a uniform.

8. A Few Good Men (1992)

Who doesn’t like a good old-fashioned high-concept neo-noir action sci-fi whodunit? This is <em>A.I</em>. and <em>Raiders of the Lost Ark</em> smashed together, with a mystery added for flavor. <em>Minority Report</em> ranks among director Steven Spielberg’s best films. That he manages to pack so much into the 145-minute runtime while never feeling like any moment is rushed through or short-changed is an achievement. The movie is creatively unrelenting, just scene after scene of inventive thrills. Even more amazing is that the movie still has a heart and a brain beneath all those set pieces. Tom Cruise’s cop-on-the-run shows great depth as he grapples with the film's central theme of free will versus fate. This is a must-see.

7. Minority Report (2002)

There’s more to<em> Top Gun</em> than just the aerial combat. Maverick’s rivalry with Iceman, a steamy romance between Cruise and Kelly McGillis, beach volleyball...but the dogfighting sequences are so incredible. They're well-crafted and edge-of-your-seat thrilling. You could replace the other stuff with industrial footage and <em>Top Gun</em> would still be one of the best action movies of all time. Director Tony Scott’s kinetic style of “doing the most” is well matched here with this look into the high-velocity world of elite pilots. It is never a bad time to throw this movie on and enter the Danger Zone.

6. Top Gun (1986)

One of the great romantic comedies? Or one of the best sports movies of all-time? Why not both? Tom Cruise is at the peak of his powers here, weaponizing his nuclear-grade charm and charisma. <em>Jerry Maguire</em> is a broken man, furiously trying to keep his head above water and plastering over any cracks in his crumbling façade with a wink and a smile. Cameron Crowe’s script is razor-sharp and immensely quotable, and as a director, he has surrounded Cruise with a stellar cast. Jonathan Lipnicki, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Renee Zellweger all give career performances. <em>Jerry Maguire</em> is the right blend of sappy and cynical. Oh, and the soundtrack is excellent to boot (this is a Cameron Crowe film after all).

5. Jerry Maguire (1996)

This is, without a doubt, the most esoteric film in Tom Cruise’s vast filmography. There are layers of meaning here to unpack and sift through. Tom Cruise gives a fine performance, but one wonders if Stanley Kubrick cast him not because of his acting talents, but because of who he is as a person. One reading of the film is that it is a deconstruction of the type of masculinity that Tom Cruise represents. I’ll leave that up to you. Like most of Kubrick’s films, it rewards re-watching. <br> <br> <em>Eyes Wide Shut</em> wasn’t as well received upon release by audiences or critics, likely because it was advertised as an erotic thriller (and it is only partially playing in that genre). This isn’t an easy movie to watch, but it is absolutely worth watching.

4. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Though <em>Magnolia</em> is a true ensemble film, it ranks high on this list because it features the finest performance of Tom Cruise’s career. Frank Mackey, a distasteful and misogynistic motivational speaker promoting pickup artistry, twists Cruise’s natural charm and shows us a darker side. He presents us with a deeply damaged man, covering old wounds with false confidence. The final scenes with this character, where Mackey confronts the source of his pain, show us some of the finest acting in any Paul Thomas Anderson film.

3. Magnolia (1999)

Thirty-six years later we finally got another installment in the <em>Top Gun</em> franchise. With even more action, fantastic aerial maneuvers, and Danger Zone. While Goose passed in the first installment, we get to see his son, Rooster (Miles Teller) take the reigns and eventually team up with Maverick to kick some ass. While theaters were still struggling to get people out to see movies, <em>Top Gun: Maverick</em> drew people out in droves and raked in nearly $1.5 billion in profits (the highest of Cruise's career). This movie hit all the right notes of nostalgia while still giving us something new to enjoy. Perhaps we are looking at the start of another successful franchise for Tom Cruise to make more sequels.

2. Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

The first <em>Mission: Impossible</em> film isn’t as outrageous as the latter entries. The set pieces are smaller, the stakes are lower, and there’s less tech. What it does have, though, is the bold and stylistic direction of Brian De Palma. This <em>Mission: Impossible</em> is less obsessed with having its protagonist jumping off of increasingly tall buildings, and instead focuses on creating tension and paranoia both in the story and its set pieces. Like Ethan Hunt in the film, the audience never knows who to trust. We’re left constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. The CIA headquarters heist sequence remains the high point of the franchise, even though it's also the series at its quietest and most deliberate. Selfishly, I wish the franchise would return to its slow-burn spycraft roots. The first <em>Mission: Impossible</em> is the best of the franchise and Tom Cruise’s best film.

1. Mission: Impossible (1996)

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COMMENTS

Collateral (2004)
Collateral: Directed by Michael Mann. With Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith, Mark Ruffalo. A cab driver finds himself the hostage of an engaging contract killer as he makes his rounds from hit to hit during one night in Los Angeles.
Collateral (film)
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 follows Max Durocher, a Los Angeles cab driver, and his customer, Vincent.
Collateral
Aug 19, 2023. Jun 13, 2023. A cab driver realizes his current fare is a hit man that has been having him drive around from mark to mark until the last witness to a crime is dead. When the cabbie ...
Collateral (2004)
Cab driver Max Durocher (Jamie Foxx) drives U.S. Justice Department prosecutor Annie Farrell (Jada Pinkett Smith) to her office where she prepares for a drug indictment case. Annie takes a liking to Max, leaving him her business card. Vincent (Tom Cruise) enters the cab next, giving Max $6000 for chauffeuring him to five appointments.
Collateral movie review & film summary (2004)
Roger Ebert August 06, 2004. Tweet. In "Collateral," a contract killer named Vincent (Tom Cruise) hires a cab driver for a journey into a physical and psychological netherworld. Now streaming on: Powered by JustWatch. "Collateral" opens with Tom Cruise exchanging briefcases with a stranger in an airport. Then, intriguingly, it seems to turn ...
Collateral (2004)
Vincent : Someday my dream will come. One night you'll wake up and you'll discover it never happened. It's all turned around on you and it never will. Suddenly you are old, didn't happened and it never will, 'cause you were never going to do it anyway.
Why Collateral Is One of the Best Underrated Michael Mann, Tom Cruise
The story of a lone-wolf contract killer (Cruise) who strongarms a hapless and meticulous cab driver (Foxx) into ferrying him on his nightly rounds to wipe out five targets involved in a grand ...
Collateral 2004 Trailer HD
Collateral 2004 A cab driver finds himself the hostage of an engaging contract killer as he makes his rounds from hit to hit during one night in Los Angeles....
Collateral
Max (Foxx) has lived the mundane life of a cab driver for 12 years. The faces have come and gone from his rearview mirror, people and places he's long since forgotten -- until tonight. Vincent (Cruise) is a contract killer. When an offshore narcotrafficking cartel learns they are about to be indicted by a federal grand jury, they mount an operation to identify and kill the key witnesses, and ...
Collateral (2004)
Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt star in director Doug Liman's sci-fi thriller, which begins shooting today at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden. By Brian Gallagher Oct 1, 2012 Aaron Eckhart
‎Collateral (2004) directed by Michael Mann
Cab driver Max picks up a man who offers him $600 to drive him around. But the promise of easy money sours when Max realizes his fare is an assassin. ... 'Collateral' ends with Tom Cruise dying on the same subway as it leaves town. Both of their characters dress identically. ... Whether it's a drama like Eyes Wide Shut, or an action movie like ...
Watch Collateral
Ruthless assassin Tom Cruise forces cabbie Jamie Foxx to chauffer him to a series of planned hits over the course of a seamy L.A. night. 7,033 IMDb 7.5 1 h 59 min 2004 X-Ray HDR UHD R
Collateral
It's a long, brutal night in L.A. when hit man Tom Cruise hijacks a cab driver and forces him to serve as escort in Michael Mann's latest crime thriller. ... And the sparse jazz, classical and down-tempo soundtrack stretch the movie's already moody, ambient feel. Tom Cruise—sporting Raymond Burr's short, ...
Neon Noir
Tom Cruise hitman movie - Collateral 2004 The action: quality over quantity. ... Jamie Foxx spent countless hours driving with real cab drivers as well as practicing high-speed driving. And Mark Ruffalo, who plays a vice Detective, underwent similar extensive weapons training as Cruise, despite the fact his character never once fires his gun in ...
Collateral Ending Explained: A Cab And Subway Ride Through 21st ...
The surface-level plot of "Collateral" is easy enough to follow and describe in 25 words: hitman Vincent ( Tom Cruise) forces cabbie Max (Jamie Foxx) to drive him around L.A. at night as he ...
Collateral: Looking Back at Tom Cruise's Underrated ...
Max (Jamie Foxx) is a taxi driver with grandeur dreams of having a limousine business. Vincent gets in the cab and decides that Vincent is going to be his ride for the whole night. Their cat-and ...
Under the Radar: 'Collateral' is the second greatest movie about a taxi
Vincent (Tom Cruise) is a contract killer who hijacks a taxicab and its driver, Max (Jamie Foxx), for a job in DreamWorks Pictures' and Paramount Pictures' dramatic thriller "Collateral ...
Cruise, Foxx, Mann Collaborate on 'Collateral'
Tom Cruise plays the bad guy in Collateral, a new film by director Michael Mann, who employs a creative soundtrack and stunning digital cinematography. Jamie Foxx co-stars as a cab driver caught ...
Collateral (2004)
10/10. An unforgettable, complex action thriller. Achyut_Prashast_Singh 16 September 2018. COLLATERAL is a highly appreciable action thriller by Michael Mann. Tom Cruise is on the top of his game, and so is Jamie Foxx. Running at 2 hours, this is a crisply edited film with a tight writing and fast pacing.
10 of the Best Movies About Cab Drivers
The 10 of the Best Movies About Cab Drivers, as voted on by fans. Current Top 3: Collateral, Taxi, Taxi Driver ... a hardworking taxi driver with dreams bigger than his current reality, unknowingly picks up Vincent (Tom Cruise), a cold-blooded contract killer. As night descends, Vincent forces Max into a chilling odyssey through the urban ...
plot explanation
Throughout the movie he continued to use Max as the cab driver on the assumption that there is nothing Max would try to do to injure Vincent. For example after shooting in the club incident, Vincent retained control by shooting the FBI agent and telling Max to get back in the car.
Collateral
Collateral - Apple TV. Available on Paramount+, Prime Video, iTunes, Hulu, Sling TV, SHOWTIME. A cab driver realizes his current fare is a hit man that has been having him drive around from mark to mark until the last witness to a crime is dead. When the cabbie finally figures out the truth, he must prevent the assassin from wiping out his last ...
The Weird Way Tom Cruise Prepared For His Collateral Role
This Michael Mann-helmed thriller cast Cruise in a rare villainous role as Vincent, an icy hitman who forces Jamie Foxx's cab driver Max - a role Adam Sandler turned down - to drive him around L.A. as he commits five killings. Cruise and Foxx both received praise for their work, with the film being both an absorbing character drama and a slick ...
Collateral Movie Review
In COLLATERAL, Max (Jamie Foxx) is a cab driver who begins his shift by wiping off the dashboard and putting his favorite picture on the visor. He takes his job seriously. Vince (Tom Cruise) offers Max $600 to stay with him all night, through five stops. Max turns him down at first; it's against the rules. But then he says yes.
Ranking The Top 26 Best Tom Cruise Films Ever Made
They weren't trying to reinvent the wheel with this one. Tony Scott teams back up with Tom Cruise to essentially remake Top Gun, trading out fighter jets for stock cars. It doesn't quite reach ...