I definitely enjoyed this movie. It keeps you on the edge and doesn't make you want to stop watching.

It's one problem is that it doesn't make sense. Besides the fact that hitman Vincent takes the same cab his last victim just took there is also the fact that Vincent seems to do everything that will make it hard for him to keep it low and stay anonymous. What hitman would kill a guy right in front of the cab driver? And then go riding with the same driver to the other murder destinations? One would think he would go, do his job, return to the cab quietly without making Max suspicious. Then get out and take another driver getting lost in this huge city. I can tell myself that this is because Vincent is an overconfident sociopath but he does it for a living, he should know better.

Still, I can overlook this problem since otherwise the movie is really good. It is filmed in a pretty stylish way. I keeps one exciting. It has some amazing and creative scenes and ideas.

And the acting is top level. I loved Tom Cruise as a villain. It is different from his typical role and he was great at it. Jamie Foxx was also showing us his amazing talent. The dynamic between the characters is great. Vincent has this cruel power that we can see Max is feeling. He is a villain that is different from the ones we know and while we never really get to know who he is he seems to have many character levels. Max on the other hand shows us how he feels under the pressure of this extraordinary client. Him not knowing what to do in this situation and how it leads to the actions towards the end of the movie.

Really good job, I am sure glad I chose this movie to watch today. One of the better thrillers I have seen lately.

This one's exactly as the DVD sleeve description says, dedicated assassin "Vincent (Tom Cruise) is a cool, calculating contract killer at the top of his game. Max (Jamie Foxx) is a cabbie with big dreams and little to show for it. Now, Max has to transport Vincent on his next job - one night, five stops, five hits and a getaway. And after this fateful night, neither man will ever be the same again. Tonight everything is changing…" You quickly get used to the change in hair dye.

The fact that some awards givers, including members of the "Golden Globes" and "Academy Awards" organizations, considered Mr. Foxx as the year's "Best Supporting Actor" really calls their legitimacy and reputation into question. You've got to wonder if these people are even watching the movies. Foxx an above-the-title STAR of the film; for anyone napping during the running time, it's confirmed during the end credits. By the way, how could you nap during this film?

DreamWorks produces writer Stuart Beattie's plot in delirious style. "Collateral" is a visual treat, thanks to director Michael Mann plus cinematographers Dion Beebe and Paul Cameron. The James Newton Howard music is perfect. These filmmakers make Los Angeles a sprawling, empty vessel in which to pour Mr. Beattie's moody psychological character clash. The real supporting players, Jada Pinkett Smith (as Annie Farrell) and Mark Ruffalo (as Fanning) are great.

******** Collateral (8/5/04) Michael Mann ~ Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith, Mark Ruffalo

What happens when a working class stiff - you know, a decent human being and a live-and-let-live Average Joe type - finds himself face to face with Evil incarnate? Well, that's exactly what happens to a cab driver named Max in Michael Mann's allegorical thriller "Collateral," a sharply-defined morality tale that unfolds on the freeways and surface streets of after-hours Los Angeles.

"Collateral" is that rare crime drama that is more concerned with theme and character than with the mechanics of the crime - at least until the movie shatters to pieces in its closing reel, that is. But for starters, writer Stuart Beattie has come up with a humdinger of a premise to get the ball rolling. Max has been driving a cab for twelve years now, but he still has dreams of owning a fancy limo company one day, then retiring to his own private little island getaway in the South Seas. One fateful night, he picks up a fare who will end up changing his life forever. Vincent is a paid assassin who virtually kidnaps Max, forcing him to drive him around town so he can track down and execute his assigned hits. Max can do little but look on helplessly as he gets pulled further and further into this cat-and-mouse game of cold-blooded murder.

"Collateral" is, above all, an actor's film, as two intriguing characters square off in a fascinating duel of wills. As Max, Jamie Foxx beautifully captures the subtle intensity of a man, passive and humanistic by nature, who is forced to participate in what is to him an incomprehensible case of ritualized slaughter. Tom Cruise, cast against type as an unshaven, salt-and-pepper-haired villain, is chilling as a steely-eyed killer seemingly cut off from even the most basic human emotions of empathy and concern for one's fellow man. Together, these two fine actors draw us into their epic struggle between the forces of good and the forces of evil, with the latter seemingly holding most of the cards.

The movie is filled with moments of extraordinary suspense and tension as Vincent and Max act out their human drama against the backdrop of a beautifully filmed LA at night - with Mann showing, once again, as he did in "Heat," that no director captures that milieu with greater precision than he does. Moreover, the moody soundtrack provides a perfect, otherworldly complement to the slightly surreal story unraveling on screen.

Unfortunately, "Collateral" falls apart long about the last half hour, as the plot mechanics take over and the characters become pawns in the hands of an out-of-control screenwriter who obviously could find no workable way to bring his tale to a satisfying conclusion. The tension in the first three-quarters of the film derives from our knowledge that Vincent has, for all intents and purposes, caught Max in a snare from which he cannot escape. Thus, that cab becomes a crucial factor in the human drama taking place within its restrictive confines. But once Max and Vincent leave the cab and become separated in the closing stretches, we lose that sense of claustrophobic entrapment so essential to the tale, and most of the tension evaporates. Thus, what starts off as a severely circumscribed tale of two men caught in their own private little hell ultimately devolves into a damsel-in-distress, knight-in-shining-armor action fantasy that undercuts the realism and seriousness of all that came before.

Still, taken as a whole, "Collateral" is a thriller well worth watching.