Collateral

Michael Mann and Tom Cruise.  Sounded like a great combo.  Missed it in the theatre.  Saw this on On Demand at my mom's.  That service is great for movies.  I can't wait until they get current series on there, too.  That would make Tivo obsolete.  It doesn't quite make Netflix obsolete, because not all movies are available On Demand.  With Netflix, you do get to choose from just about everything that's available.

The premise to this movie is given away in the previews.  Jamie Foxx is a cab driver and he picks up Tom Cruise, who happens to be a hit man.

The movie starts out with Foxx picking up Jada Pinket Smith (looking really pretty.)  Things they plant are that Foxx really knows the city, and how long it takes to get anywhere.  He predicts travel times down to the minute.  Fox and Smith connect a little and she gives him her card.  That plant comes back later in the story.

The first victim falls out of the window and lands on the cab.  Cruise forces Foxx to get back in the car and take him to the rest of his targets.

There are a few good lines in the movie:

"You killed him!"

"I shot him.  The bullets and the fall killed him."

A little later, a detective enters the apartment of the first victim.  There are a couple of lucky breaks, but nothing too outrageous.  Like, the coroner remarks on the similarity of the bullet wounds in multiple victims.  Two shots grouped close together in the chest and one in the head.  That gives the detective a clue that they're connected.  So, unknown to Cruise and Foxx, the police are working on the case.  And they know enough about the connections between early victims to be able to predict one of the later ones.

It was kind of interesting seeing Cruise with graying hair.  He didn't look bad in any way.  But it did a lot to remove the pretty-boy image.

The story was good, but it wasn't quite as tight as Heat.  There are a few more pass-through characters.  Like, we get to meet one of the victims.  Cruise spends five or ten minutes talking with him, and then of course he's gone.  We also meet Foxx' mother for a few minutes.  Somehow, these minor characters diluted the story a little.  I mean, it was clear that Cruise and Foxx were extremely competent at their jobs and were very intelligent. And the cops seemed pretty good, too.  But I didn't get near the sense of the personalities that I had in Heat.

On my brother's Total Movie Value Scale, Rental with Dinner.  Cruise and Foxx make a good team with Michael Mann.  They pull it off despite the slightly contrived premise.

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