Collateral

The intimate acting between Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx is so unbelievable detailed and surprisingly quiet for most of their gestures despite having some loud scenes, usually lined with tension. It’s so perfectly spot on that this is Michael Mann’s version of a buddy road movie and it’s two total strangers circling LA through the night as their personalities mesh and repel over and over again. Eventually the indifference that Vincent boasts about begins to resonate with Max to a point that he’ll actually make a move towards something rather than succumb to his anonymous fate as a passerby rather than using it to fuel his progress through the world like his counterpart. I think the story builds so nicely with some underrated pop ups from Mark Ruffalo and Javier Bardem. I’d say this has to be one of Mann’s more comedic films despite the firm tone remaining readily available. That along with muted colors of a digitized Los Angeles obscuring your purpose entirely, just liked everything else seems to be vanishing in a city this big. There are portions of this thing where you have no clue where they’re located or what time it is. The ability to find spots that are the equivalent to phantom locations is something that you rarely find so consistently with other filmmakers. Being able to convey this feeling of complete isolation almost to an ethereal effect is so impressive to me but the fact it goes hand in hand with every one of his stories is some of my favorite repeat tendencies of any director. There is a sequence which really kicks off the whole final act which is up there with my favorite 20-30 minutes of probably any film and I don’t think that’s an exaggeration. We get the coyote roaming through LA, which apparently just happened on set and Mann wanted to work it in followed immediately by one of the hardest needle drops of all time I don’t care if you disagree. From here we get one of the most meticulously staged nightclub scenes and shootouts you’ll ever see with whole squads of people being dispatched with full location control being had. The lines of sight being flashed around while everyone is funneling is so wild, I don’t even know how’d you’d begin trying to set up and carry out such movement. I’m sure if you’ve made Heat then something like this seems much more manageable, however I don’t think it’s scope should limit just how impressive it is. The end confrontation is great with it being purposeful that the chase is much more taxing and complicated than the finale which similarly paralleled to the themes of the picture. Echoing that there will be a cold suddenness to your exit which will not cause so much as a ripple to anything else, meaning you might as well get off your BarcaLounger, turn off the daytime TV in order to make it happen. God damn this shit rocks. Coolest Films Ever Made Michael Mann Ranked