Collateral (Two-Disc Special Edition) | 
| Director: Michael Mann
Actors: Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith, Mark Ruffalo, Peter Berg
Studio: Dreamworks Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $12.98
Buy Used: $0.01
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Avg. Customer Rating:  401 reviews
Sales Rank: 2842
Format: Ac-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dts Surround Sound, Dubbed, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), Spanish (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), French (Dubbed)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Number Of Items: 2
Running Time: 120
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 4.7 x 0.6
MPN: DRWD91734D
ISBN: 1417010789
UPC: 678149173420
EAN: 9781417010783
ASIN: B00005JN2Z
Theatrical Release Date: August 6, 2004
Release Date: December 14, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Vincent is a cool calculating contract killer at the top of his game. Max is a cabbie with big dreams looking for his next fare. This fateful night max will transport vincent on his next mission - one night 5 stops 5 hits & a perfect getaway. Together they find themselves in a non-stop race against time. Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 08/22/2006 Starring: Tom Cruise Jada Picket Smith Run time: 120 minutes Rating: R
Amazon.com
Collateral offers a change of pace for Tom Cruise as a ruthless contract killer, but that's just one of many reasons to recommend this well-crafted thriller. It's from Michael Mann, after all, and the director's stellar track record with crime thrillers (Thief, Manhunter, and especially Heat) guarantees a rich combination of intelligent plotting, well-drawn characters, and escalating tension, beginning here when icy hit-man Vincent (Cruise) recruits cab driver Max (Jamie Foxx) to drive him through a nocturnal tour of Los Angeles, during which he will execute five people in a 10-hour spree. While Stuart Beattie's screenplay deftly combines intimate character study with raw bursts of action (in keeping with Mann's directorial trademark), Foxx does the best work of his career to date (between his excellent performance in Ali and his title-role showcase in Ray), and Cruise is fiercely convincing as an ultra-disciplined sociopath. Jada Pinkett-Smith rises above the limitations of a supporting role, and Mann directs with the confidence of a master, turning L.A. into a third major character (much as it was in the Mann-produced TV series Robbery Homicide Division). Collateral is a bit slow at first, but as it develops subtle themes of elusive dreams and lives on the edge, it shifts into overdrive and races, with breathtaking precision, toward a nail-biting climax. --Jeff Shannon
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| Customer Reviews: Read 396 more reviews...
Opposing Forces Collide on the Streets of L.A. November 15, 2008
Director Michael Mann (Manhunter and Heat) is well known for being a precise and methodical filmmaker. He often focuses on minute but important aspects of both the story and the characters therein, which has earned him the reputation of being an "actor's director". This unique interaction between Mann and his cast is exemplified in the suspense film, Collateral, which features an impressive cast of actors, all of whom give naturalistic and psychologically complex performances. The story, about a cab driver who is forced to drive a hitman around the city of Los Angeles while he assassinates his targets, is quite literally driven by its vividly realized characters. These characters, who are three-dimensional and feel almost familiar, are brought to life by an all-star cast. The cast includes Tom Cruise as Vincent, Jamie Foxx as Max, Jada Pinkett Smith as Annie, and Mark Ruffalo as Detective Fanning. Each member of the cast gives a great performance, especially Jada Pinkett Smith and Mark Ruffalo, who aren't what would be considered the main characters and yet they create memorable personas. But the real scene-stealers are the performances of Foxx and Cruise, whose characters are dynamic despite being polar opposites.
Vincent is a slickly dressed, cold and calculating hitman, who has buried his emotions for years in order to make himself a more efficient killer. Max is an obsessive-compulsive, perfectionist of a cabdriver, who has allowed his lifelong dreams to slip by because he lacks the confidence and the initiative to make them a reality. But on one fateful night, these two strangers' lives will collide and neither will be the same.
When Vincent asks Max if he will drive him around the city while he makes five stops, Max is at first hesitant and unsure... until Vincent offers him $700. But during their first stop, while Vincent is inside of an apartment complex, a body falls from the balcony and comes crashing down onto the roof of Max's cab. It immediately becomes clear that Vincent has killed the man and Max knows that he has now essentially become a hostage. As Max is forced to drive Vincent to his remaining stops while Vincent assassinates his targets, the two share conversations and begin to see each other for who and what they truly are. This has an effect on the both of them, though a different effect. As Max becomes more assertive and confident, Vincent is reintroduced to his more human side. Meanwhile a narcotics detective named Fanning is tracking down Vincent because he knows that someone's responsible for the deaths of certain witnesses for the prosecution of a major drug trafficker named Felix. And it is Felix that has hired Vincent to eliminate these witnesses. It's not long before the FBI becomes involved and they believe that Max is the killer, not Vincent who they don't even know exists.
Soon Max is angered by Vincent's general disregard for life and he is empowered by the realization that he does have some control over what happens to him. When Max discovers that Vincent's final target is a beautiful criminal prosecutor named Annie, who Max had befriended earlier in the evening, Max is forced to race Vincent to save her. Max, the passive cabbie is pitted against Vincent, the sociopathic contract killer. Yet on this night anything can happen.
Collateral gave Michael Mann the unique opportunity of shooting a film in Los Angeles after dark and he delighted in showing audiences a side to the city that they may not have known existed before. Using, predominantly, a Hi Def digital camera, he creates a vision of Los Angeles that is simultaneously stark, oppressive, beautiful, and colorful. Mann also exposes the economic differences and the cultural diversity of L.A., which gives the film a different flavor from other films that have shot there.
Though highly stylized and at times a little predictable, Collateral is one of the best suspense films of the past decade. The reason being that it's rare to have such naturalistic actors playing such believable characters while they are trapped in the most extraordinary of circumstances. This is where Mann excels as a filmmaker, telling stories that are somewhat far-fetched and yet it doesn't matter because as an audience we have a sincere emotional investment in the characters. As we watch Max and Vincent confide in each other, and as we see them both become torn by internal conflict, we can't help but empathize with their plights and wonder, "What would I do in that situation?"
Also recommended:
Leon: The Professional
Nick of Time
Enemy of the State
Panic Room
Changing Lanes
Phone Booth
Man on Fire
Crash
 Best Tom Cruise movie ever October 27, 2008
This is probably the best Tom Cruise movie ever!!!
The gunshots sound amazing! This just needs to be released on Blu-ray now!
Good October 8, 2008
I watched this movie four times this week already, since it first premiered on DVD (saw it three times at the movie theaters). I have to admit ... I saw "HEAT" eight times at the movie theaters (my personal record), so you can say that I'm "biased" towards Michael Mann's films. His characters are always so REAL, and rich. I never feel like I'm watching stereotypical movie characters. I feel like I'm "peeking in" on someone's life. That's how I felt with Max and Vincent. They seemed so real to me. Most "hit man" roles don't seem real to me, but the character of Vincent did, as played by mega-star Tom Cruise. Jamie Foxx almost stole the movie though with his best performance to date, with the possible exception of "Ray." I loved everything about this movie, and his performance, particularly when he went to meet up with bad guy "Felix." That scene was CLASSIC. This movie gets FIVE STARS in my book. It's one you will want to watch over and over again.
Good September 29, 2008
I heard the plot outline and thought to myself this doesn't have the makings for a good movie. Why would a hit man choose a cabbie to drive him around? Why would this be interesting? But, I had similar thoughts before seeing "The Insider" - why would a movie about a corporate whistle blower be interesting. Now, "The Insider", along with "Heat", "The Last of the Mohicans", and "Manhunter" are some of my favorite movies. After seeing Collateral, I surprisingly really didn't have a problem with the issue of why a hit-man would have a cabbie drive him around from hit to hit. But, it didn't live up to other Michael Mann movies that I love. It seemed like a long version of an RHD episode. If you want an entertaining movie, this will suffice. If you want Michael Mann at the top of his form, this isn't it.
It remains superficial gray rather than noir September 28, 2008
This film is not particularly rich as for the content. A professional killer has been hired to eliminate all the witnesses and even the cops and other prosecution personnel in some criminal case. Banal. He does not want to drive his own car and he does not want to hire a car and an accomplice to drive him around. So he comes at night and just hires a taxi and its driver. That makes him difficult to trace. But that creates some problems because the taxi-driver is not really willing to do the job. And then the two are like mutual prisoners or custodians. One cannot work without the other and one cannot escape from the other. Yet the taxi-driver, after a long series of killings, finds the courage to cause an accident which means the arrival of the cops, but that also means the discovery of the first body that had been put in the trunk and the taxi driver's discovery that the next and last target is the woman he had transported just before this embarrassing and invading client. He decides to escape from the cop who is trying to arrest him, and who was alone on his car patrol, and to prevent the killing of the girl. He will even go slightly further. But that's not the main interest of the film. We could have predicted all that from the very start. Then it's only details. The interest is the rhythm and the twists in the fabric of the tale. In fact it is economical in blood and even bullets because it centers on the psychological profile of the taxi-driver and the relation he establishes with his customer. Strangely enough it is more psychological than we could have expected and that saves the film from banality.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
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