"Collateral" Crafty Thriller with Cunning Foxx

Such is the case when the sultry and beguiling Annie (Jada Pinkett Smith) shuts his door. An Assistant U.S. District Attorney, this laid back bombshell gets under Max’s skin, putting him at an ease he’s not known for some time. The two exchange quiet banter, gently discussing their lives like old friends, not passenger and driver. And when Annie exits the cab and hands him her business card, it’s not important if he calls her or not, it’s that there’s been a connection made; a moment of humanity contrasted against the emotionless L.A. skyline.

As day subtly shades into moonlight and the lights of the city start their explosion, Max gets what appears to be a second great fare in as many stops as the icy clean Vincent (Tom Cruise) steps into the cab. A businessman with only one evening to close a big real estate deal and impressed with Max’s charisma and skills behind the wheel, he offers the cabby six-hundred dollars to make five stops, an offer too rich for even the by-the-book driver to refuse.

But things don’t always go as planned, and this night is about to go from happily surprising to murderously awful with one thundering thud. Vincent isn’t a realtor, he’s a hitman, and when killing number one goes south Max is unavoidably drawn into the assassin’s game plan. Now he’s the chauffeur to his own demise, and with only a few hours to calculate an escape can this man of big dreams but little action do what is necessary to save the day?

What’s special about Michael Mann’s new crime thriller “Collateral” isn’t that it treads new ground or goes in new directions but that it is so naturally rhythmic to the cadences of multifaceted humanity. This isn’t a traditional three-act picture; all the events leading up to this fateful night happen off screen and are only talked about in general terms. No, this is a movie about the here and now, about the actions required when extreme circumstances knock, and this compression of time and space gives “Collateral” an epic, almost nausea-inducing, urgency most contemporary thrillers lack.

Most attractive is how easy-going things are at first. Mann lulls you in, quietly showing the viewer whom Max is, setting up his nightly routine as if he’s bread and driving the cab is the butter sealing things together. In lesser hands, the rush to get to the punchline, the hurry to reveal Vincent and his motives for what they are, would be first priority. Not for Mann. He knows the action and the violence come soon enough, exploding across his canvass like oil to water, so taking his time to set up character and nuance is what matters most to him.

And I thank him for that, for it is the human dimension – not just between Max and Vincent but with the sideline characters, too – that resonate the strongest. I just love the way that Mark Ruffalo’s every-man detective sniffs at the periphery of a night that just smells all wrong, tragically finding himself correct even when best friends and FBI rivals think he’s full of it. Or, the way the great Javier Bardem twists his words around innuendo as a mysterious crime lord, shiftily trying to figure out who and what the man sitting across for him is really up to. Then there is Barry Shabaka Henley, evangelically relating tales of Miles Davis and lost youth to an infatuated Vincent and Max, only to see his world shatter and his face fall from grace with the uttering of a single name.

In another movie, these characters would be afterthoughts, devices used to get Vincent and Max on to the next killing.  Not here. Mann knows the fates of these people are every bit as vital to the story as what goes on inside the cab. Nothing is left to chance; each actor plays off the other like jazz musicians magically reaching for that next cadence, Mann the conductor pulling the strings with dexterous ease.

But that cab, that lonely silent car full of faux vinyl seats and colorless decoration, is where the magic really does happen. Cruise and Foxx find a chemistry that’s worthy of a song, each discovering notes in the other that go from delirium to heartbreak all with the twist of a finger. They are the masters of their own domain, each knowing they cannot survive the night without the help of the other and a cold-blooded bond of brotherhood develops that only shatters when Vincent turns his eye to a mark with unforeseen links to Max.

Cruise, an uncommonly underrated actor despite three Oscar nominations, goes the Denzel Washington route towards ultimate acceptance by playing evil. It’s a great choice, and Mann takes him where he’s never journeyed before. What’s really great is that Vincent, vile and masochistic to the core, still has his own moral code of ethics and not finishing this night’s errands would be a horrendous breach. But something inside Max melts him, if only a little, and Cruise elucidates this with beauteous understatement.

As good as he is, however, “Collateral” is Jamie Foxx’s movie from first frame to last. In almost every scene, this is the moment where I can no longer fail to see this former “In Living Color” buffoon for the major talent he is. From “Any Given Sunday” to “Ali” to “Redemption” to even “Breakin’ All the Rules,” Foxx has proven he has the potential to be a breakout big-time star. Now he proves it. Max is a dreamer, but he’s lost the will to move beyond the dream. Vincent wakes him out of his stupor, shows him life is more than just finding the perfect moment that can’t ever really come. He’s a flawed, sometimes shallow man broke down but not battered, and Foxx brings him to life with a slowly simmering burn that’s mesmerizing.

If Stuart Beattie’s screenplay becomes more than a bit contrived and unrealistic towards the end, if coincidence and chance finally play too big a role, this is still a masterfully crafted thriller made with the precision of a master at the top of his game. Mann knows these streets like the back of his hand, knows which turns work, which turns don’t and which turns will throw the audience for a sideways loop. His mix of High Definition Digital Video and traditional 35mm film is inspiring (cinematographers Dione Beebe and Paul Cameron deserve more kudos than I have room for here), and there is an immediacy to the project that’s nerve rattling.