Collateral (film)
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| Collateral | |
|---|---|
 Collateral Theatrical Poster |
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| Directed by | Michael Mann |
| Produced by | Michael Mann Julie Richardson |
| Written by | Stuart Beattie Michael Mann (uncredited) Frank Darabont (uncredited) |
| Starring | Tom Cruise Jamie Foxx Mark Ruffalo Jada Pinkett Smith |
| Music by | James Newton Howard |
| Cinematography | Dion Beebe |
| Editing by | Jim Miller Paul Rubell |
| Distributed by | - USA - DreamWorks SKG - non-USA - Paramount Pictures |
| Release date(s) | August 6, 2004 |
| Running time | 119 minutes |
| Language | English Spanish |
| Budget | -Production- 65 million USD -Marketing- 40 million USD |
| IMDb profile | |
Collateral is a 2004 Academy Award-nominated Dreamworks SKG/Paramount Pictures American drama/thriller/crime film directed by Michael Mann and written by Stuart Beattie, with un-credited rewrites by Mann and Frank Darabont.
It had financial success, and was largely praised by critics. The film is also noticeable for having Tom Cruise playing a rare villainous role. Both followers of Michael Mann and Tom Cruise have considered it a good film, though there has been substantial critical praise for the performance of Jamie Foxx, including a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination. The movie takes place in Los Angeles though the original screenplay set the story in New York. It is also the first major motion picture to be shot with the Viper FilmStream Camera.
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[edit] Plot summary
A nihilistic, erudite hitman, Vincent (Tom Cruise) uses a taxicab to carry out a series of contract hits in a single night in Los Angeles. The unlucky taxi driver is Max (Jamie Foxx), who soon learns what his passenger is up to when Vincent's first hit lands on the roof of the taxi. Max's situation then turns into a tense series of escape attempts and desperate pleas. Eventually Max accepts that he can't argue with Vincent and resentfully carries him around the city, clearly horrified at what he is in effect assisting.
Eventually, Max realizes that the marks are key witnesses for the prosecution in a court case against an organized crime boss. Max must find a way to save himself and the one last victim (Jada Pinkett Smith) while a police detective (Mark Ruffalo) is hot on Vincent's trail.
[edit] Featured cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Javier Bardem | Felix |
| Peter Berg | Richard Weidner |
| Tom Cruise | Vincent |
| Bodhi Elfman | Young Professional Man |
| Jamie Foxx | Max |
| Irma P. Hall | Ida |
| Barry Shabaka Henley | Daniel |
| Richard T. Jones | Traffic Cop #1 |
| Debi Mazar | Young Professional Woman |
| Jamie McBride | Traffic Cop #2 |
| Bruce McGill | Pedrosa |
| Emilio Rivera | Paco |
| Mark Ruffalo | Fanning |
| Klea Scott | Fed #1 |
| Jada Pinkett Smith | Annie |
| Jason Statham | Airport Man |
[edit] Synopsis
Max (Jamie Foxx) is a cabbie in LA; he strives to be the best. He has had the job for twelve years. Max has dreams of starting a limo company in his head, but they’re just dreams. One day he picks up a prosecuting attorney Annie Farrell (Jada Pinkett Smith), they talk, and in the end when she leaves the cab, she gives him her business card and asks him to call her sometime "To argue cab routes".
As Max is staring at the card in amazement, a non-descript man, Vincent (Tom Cruise), hails Max's cab. Initially, Vincent gets no response from Max, and starts to move to the next in line cab behind Max's. Ironically, Max realizes that he just missed out on a fare, and coaxes Vincent to return to the cab. After getting Vincent's destination and quoting a "time" as he did with Annie, Max makes the typical Cabbie small-talk with Vincent, who tells him that it's not his first time in L.A., and that every time he's here he can't wait to leave. Vincent continues to explain how sprawled out and disconnected the City of Los Angeles feels to visitors. When asked if he agreed with that statement, Max simply says "It's home". Vincent continues the dialogue with a short story; "I read about this guy who gets on the MTA here, dies. Six hours he's riding the subway before anybody notices his corpse doing laps around L.A., people on and off sitting next to him. Nobody notices.". Max gets him to his destination in time. Vincent admires Max's precision and attention to detail, subsequently asking him to be his driver for the entire night, taking him to four more "appointments" and then back to the LAX for a departing flight. Max shows hesitation at first saying that it's against the taxi company's regulations, but accepts after Vincent offers him $600 for the night and an extra $100 "if you get me to LAX and I don't have to run for the plane." Since this is almost twice as much as Max makes in one shift, he has little choice but to agree. Max waits for him to return in an alley behind the building.
Next, Max unwraps his submarine sandwich and starts to eat it. In an instant, a body smashes on the roof of the cab. Max is stunned, throwing his sandwich and spreading its ingredients all over the front seat of the cab he keeps so clean. He looks up at where the body came from and then down again to see Vincent standing near the trunk of the car. Vincent has a noticeably tense demeanor, looking around for any signs of attention, but also disgusted at his lack of good fortune. Adding up the chain of events, Max asks, “You killed him?”, Vincent responds, “No, I shot him. Bullets and the fall killed him.” Max begins to freak out, until Vincent raises his gun in order to force Max into helping him put the dead body in the cab's trunk. After quite a bit of coaxing, Vincent takes Max hostage and forces him to continue his job of chauffering Vincent around L.A. for the remainder of his contract hits. Max continues to freak out even while driving, and Vincent's nihilistic beliefs become even more evident. As Vincent says "I off one fat Angelino and you throw a hissy fit."
The next thing Max knows, the flashing blue and red lights of an LAPD cruiser are in his rear view mirror. They pull Max over because of his broken windshield. A slightly comedic exchange ensues, when the cop sees blood on the windshield and asks how it got there. Max says he hit a deer. The cop asks where. Max says "Somewhere over by Slauson." The cop counters "A South Central deer?" The cops expect to impound the taxi, and take an inventory of its contents before the tow truck takes it away. Vincent warns Max: "Don't let me get cornered, because you don't have the trunk space." Luckily for the cops, they are called away for an officer-in-distress before they open the trunk of the cab, but not before they warn Max to take the cab immediately back to the depot.
Max and Vincent continue on. At the next hit, Max parks in a back alley at 7565 Fountain in West Hollywood. Vincent uses zip-ties to hold Max's hands to the steering wheel of the cab. Once Vincent departs to make the hit, Max honks the horn and taps the brake pedal in hopes of catching the attention of someone on the street. Furthering his bad luck this night, the attention Max attracts is from local gang members, who summarily rob him of his wallet and steal Vincent's briefcase from the back seat of the cab. Vincent reappears with excellent timing, noticing that the gang bangers have stolen his briefcase. He confronts the gang banger carrying his briefcase, who pulls a gun on Vincent, surely not knowing he is dealing with a contract killer. Vincent summarily disposes of the gang bangers in two swift motions, using a textbook Mozambique Drill, double tap to the sternum, one to the head.
The next hit is a jazz musician (played by a veteran of Michael Mann's films, character actor Barry Shabaka Henley).
At this time, a call over the radio informs Max and Vincent that Max's mom has been trying to reach him; Max religiously visits his ailing mom nightly. Max tries to blow the meeting off, but Vincent insists that they make the rendezvous, to lessen the chance that Max's situation is discovered, and to have more leverage against him (Vincent later threatens to kill Max's mother before leaving town). They make the visit - and even share the elevator with LAPD Detective Fanning, who is visiting the coroner while investigating one of Vincent's murders. Vincent discovers that Max has been lying to his mother, who believes that her son actually owns a limo service and that Vincent is one of Max's "high-profile" clients.
While Vincent amiably chats with Max's mother, Max steals his bag of files and makes a run for it. He makes it to an interstate overpass and flings the case onto the road, destroying the laptop Vincent had been using. An enraged and surprised Vincent then forces Max to meet with Felix - the man who has hired him - to get replacement files, as Vincent doesn't want his identity or appearance to be revealed to even his employers. Felix is at a cowboy club for the evening and, unbeknowingst to him and Vincent, is under surveillance by the FBI. Detective Fanning notices Max's wrecked cab on one of the surveillance cameras, and the law enforcement officials believe Max to be the hitman and that he is driving alone. They do, however, correctly judge the motives of the hits.
We learn that Felix is a powerful drug dealer and that Vincent was hired to take out the witnesses in a trial against him. Felix has hired Vincent more than once before, though he has never met Vincent and knows nothing to identify him. Pretending to be Vincent, Max succeeds in bluffing Felix into providing the required information, and allowing him to leave to complete the job. As Max leaves with the files on a flash drive, Felix instructs his men to follow "Vincent" and eliminate him if any problems occur.
Vincent and Max go to a nightclub, Fever, for the next hit, but FBI and LAPD (and Felix's men) are on their trail. In the ensuing mess, Vincent gets his target and even saves Max’s life, but also kills Fanning who - correctly figuring Max to be an innocent pawn - was nearly able to get Max away safely. Forced to drive Vincent to one last hit, a bitter argument ensues between the two, developing into mutual character assassinations. In a fit of guilt-fueled rage and fatalistic realization, Max grimly accelerates the cab to reckless speeds, catching Vincent off guard. Vincent tries to get him to slow down through desperate tactics by pointing a gun at his head but instead, Max runs the cab into a construction barrier and flips in over. To add insult to injury, Max makes another remark which prompts Vincent to try and stab him with a shard of broken glass, only to hear police sirens in the distance prompting Vincent to run on foot and leave everything behind. Max is just about to give himself up to a cop who is at the crash site when he sees that the last target on Vincent’s list is the prosecution lawyer he met in the beginning. Max quickly overpowers the cop and takes Vincent's pistol which he had left behind. Max starts running to save her. He steals a cell phone from a man on the street, aiming his stolen gun at him. He calls her to warn her, but Vincent is already in the building.
When he realises Vincent is in the building, Max runs inside. Just as Vincent is about to shoot Annie, Max shoots Vincent in the ear. Annie and Max run toward the MTA (subway). Having been shot by Max, an enraged Vincent pursues both Max and Annie through the building. As they make their way to one train underneath the building, Vincent finally stops before two trains to pick his choice, which just happens to be the one both Max and Annie are hiding in. In the ultimate climax, Max is on one side of the skytrain doors and Vincent is on the other. They both shoot multiple times until they run out of bullets. Vincent starts to re-load, finds he doesn't have another magazine, and he realizes he has been shot, bleeding from the chest. We see that the bullets fired by Vincent hit the door, this was the thing that probably saved Max, as you can see Vincent's distinguish line of firing, 2 in the gut and 1 in the head. Vincent sits down, apparently calm about the fact that he is dying. Max, still clutching his empty gun, walks over and sits across from him. With his last few breaths Vincent repeats to Max a line he said when they first met, revealing his nihilistic view, “Guy gets on the MTA here in LA and dies. Think anybody'll notice? ”
With Vincent dead, Max and Annie get off the subway and walk away into what appears to be another Los Angeles morning. The film ends with the subway train, in which Vincent's corpse is sitting, driving away.
[edit] Theme
Michael Mann himself has stated[citation needed] that the general idea behind Collateral is the clashing of ideals behind the two main characters. Vincent is obsessed with improvisation, often mentioning his reverance for constant change and making things up as he goes along almost as an art form (also reflected by his love of jazz), and definitely as a way of life, whereas Max has been driving cabs for twelve years because he believes that everything he does must be meticulously planned, especially the "Island Limos" company he wishes to set up.
This, of course, is merely one interpretation, but being the one of the director, it is most likely the one that was intended. Another interpretation implies improvisation as a way to live life. Vincent was at his best when improvising and Max was always restricted by his meticulous planning. In the final shootout, Vincent failed to adapt and fired straight ahead, hitting the doors separating him from Max. Max, on the other hand, moved to the side and fired chaotically through the windows, emptying his gun. Due to Vincent's close proximity, Max was able to hit him in the abdomen with a lucky shot. Keeping in line with other events in the film, the victor of this confrontation was the one who was most able to adapt; Max.
Interestingly, Mann's other major crime-drama movie, Heat begins with Robert DeNiro's character at an MTA station very similar to the one that Collateral ends in; Heat also begins at an MTA station and ends at an airport - Collateral begins at an airport and ends at an MTA station. On the DVD commentary for Collateral, Mann confirms that it is the same MTA station in both movies.
Another connection with Heat, and other movies of his involving criminals is the focus on the dichotomy of personalities. Heat actually has the reverse, with Al Pacino's character, the detective (also named Vincent) being the one that seems to be focused on adaptation and impulse, whereas DeNiro's criminal character is obsessively methodical with his giving into impulse leading to his downfall.
A final theme within the film is the title itself: Collateral. The main theory behind the title is Max's mother and Vincent's threat that he will kill her. This example of awareness to Vincent's surroundings serves as a way of further showing his ability to improvise and read his situation. He sees that Max is getting scared after the jazz club incident and snatches at an opportunity to gain the collateral he seeks on Max, should he decide to be uncooperative. Rather than kill Max and find another liaison to L.A., he finds a weakness outside of Max's physicality and exploits it ruthlessly.
[edit] The Coyote Scene
One scene that often creates much discussion is a short sequence where two coyotes pass in front of the cab as it stops at an intersection. Many theories arise as to the true meaning of the symbolism in the scene, and since Mann has never given a specific answer, it's still heavily debated (especially on the forums at IMDb.com).
Some of the more common theories are [original research?]:
- The coyotes directly represent Vincent and Max. The first coyote races across the road, seemingly startled and afraid, mimicking Max's reactions to Vincent. The second coyote follows behind in a much cooler, calmer manner, representing Vincent's more relaxed state. Another support to this theory is that Vincent often follows Max, even when in the cab, by always taking the back seat. Likewise, Vincent's coyote follows Max's.
- Another theory notices that Mann concentrates much more on Vincent's reaction than Max's, suggesting that Vincent is the focus of the scene. It also acknowledges the insert shot of the damaged Silver Bacardi advertisement on the roof of the cab. This supposes that Vincent, upon seeing the coyotes, realises that he is no different. He is a scavenger in a city, populated by people he doesn't understand (which Max later points out to him after escaping Fever). The damaged advertisement represents how Vincent's image is starting to crack and peel away, revealing a vulnerable man (this idea is supported later when Max sees through Vincent and rolls the car onto its roof, crushing the advertisement).
- A third popular idea relates between Max and Vincent. Had Vincent been driving, he would not have stopped for the coyotes. Max shows compassion and respect toward other life, qualities Vincent never realised that he had lost, until this moment. Vincent's mesmerised stare towards Max reveals he is surprised, even shocked, that he lacks these basic human traits.
Although these are the most common, there are several more theories pertaining to this scene that can be found on film forums. There are also plenty of people who choose to take the scene at face value—an image that Mann himself saw in real life, was struck by, and decided to include in his film.
[edit] Cameos
In the beginning of the film, upon leaving the airport, Vincent (Tom Cruise) receives the briefcase containing his files from an Englishman, played by Jason Statham. Some believe this minor character to be Frank Martin, Statham's character and the protagonist from the action thriller movies The Transporter and Transporter 2. This is never directly established, however, with the only evident similarity between the two characters being that they are both played by Jason Statham (although this theory can possibly be supported by the fact that in The Transporter movies, Statham's character is a courier of suspicious and frequently illegal materials, which would appear to be the purpose of the Englishman in this movie).
The Insider co-star Debi Mazar also makes a cameo appearance alongside Bodhi Elfman as a bickering couple in Max's cab.
[edit] Trivia
- Tom Cruise's character, Vincent, wears a similar suit to that of Robert de Niro's character in a 1995 Michael Mann film, Heat. This is no coincidence as Mann's research indicated that both characters would dedicate their appearance to being difficult to describe. Both men are medium build and height, grey and white suit with a light beard. Vincent goes further and has his hair dyed silver grey and his facial hair is less pronounced (he has facial hair but it's not a full beard). This lends his appearance a low contrast, colorless look that will not draw attention to itself. Both Vincent and McCauly in Heat use the Mozambique Drill and even the words "double tap to the sternum and one to the head" make it into the films.
- To prepare for his role as Vincent as a person who could get in and out of anywhere without being recognized or remembered, Tom Cruise made FedEx deliveries in a crowded Los Angeles market without being recognized - one of these deliveries can be seen on the DVD.
- In one scene, Jamie Foxx can be seen eating a Subway sandwich while he sits in his taxi.
- There is an error in the final sequence of the movie concerning the MTA blue line: while Max & Annie are making their getaway from Vincent, the destination that the train is headed for isn't the usual path the blue line takes but instead end up going the route of the MTA Green Line and ending up at the end of the line in Redondo Beach instead of Long Beach
- The "Black Peter" Christmas story that Felix tells is a real-life folktale; however, it is not a Mexican tale, but rather a Dutch one.
[edit] Awards and nominations
2005 ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards
- Won - Top Box Office Film — James Newton Howard, Antonio Pinto
2005 Academy Awards (Oscars)
- Nominated - Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role — Jamie Foxx
- Nominated - Best Editing — Jim Miller, Paul Rubell
2005 Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films (Saturn Awards)
- Nominated - Best Actor (Film) — Tom Cruise
- Nominated - Best Director — Michael Mann
- Nominated - Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film
- Nominated - Best Writing — Stuart Beattie
2005 American Cinema Editors (Eddies)
- Nominated - Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Theatrical Releases — Dion Beebe, Paul Cameron
- Nominated - Feature Film - Contemporary Film — David Wasco, Daniel T. Dorrance, Aran Mann, Gerald Sullivan, Christopher Tandon
- Won - Best Cinematography — Dion Beebe, Paul Cameron
- Nominated - Best Actor in a Supporting Role — Jamie Foxx
- Nominated - David Lean Award for Direction — Michael Mann
- Nominated - Best Editing — Jim Miller, Paul Rubell
- Nominated - Best Screenplay (Original) — Stuart Beattie
- Nominated - Best Sound — Elliott Koretz, Lee Orloff, Michael Minkler, Myron Nettinga
- Won - Best Supporting Actor — Jamie Foxx
- Nominated - Best Supporting Actress — Jada Pinkett Smith
2005 Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards
- Nominated - Best Supporting Actor — Jamie Foxx
- Nominated - Best Picture
[edit] External links
- Official site
- Collateral at the Internet Movie Database
- Collateral at Rotten Tomatoes
- Shit Happens - The Collateral Fanlisting
| The Films of Michael Mann |
|---|
| Thief • The Keep • Manhunter • The Last of the Mohicans • Heat • The Insider • Ali • Collateral • Miami Vice |
Categories: Articles with unsourced statements | Articles which may contain original research | Articles with large trivia sections | 2004 films | Crime films | DreamWorks films | English-language films | Films directed by Michael Mann | Films featuring a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nominated performance | Films shot digitally | Films shot in Super 35 | Neo-noir | Neo-Western films | Spanish-language films | Paramount films | Thriller films
