Collateral *****

Film 4 showed this movie last night. I am a fan of Michael Mann but whilst this is every bit as stylish as Heat, it hangs together better as a complete entity.

Tom Cruise (who I am not usually bothered about) plays a hitman, Vincent, in town for the night to do a spot of contract killing. Jamie Foxx is Max, the unwitting soul recruited to drive Vincent around for the duration. Max is a disenfranchised, nice guy, taxi driver who starts to realise that, up against Vincent and perhaps in the rest of his life he needs to take a stand. Vincent, on the other hand, is surfing along on the edge of his confidence and power, doing "what he does for a living......indifferent", causing havoc.

Sometimes aspects of a character in a film remind me of people I know and this for me is a sign of a great performance. Rarely has it happened to the extent that it does in the case of Vincent (not sure what this says about people I know).

This a black comedy; the bullying of Max by Vincent generates much tension and even amusement, odd pairings in other films like Midnight Run and Planes Trains and Automobiles come to mind. The imdb page for the film features much of Vincent's wisdom and ascerbic one-liners.

One dead body already in the boot of the car, two cops approach, "Don't let me get backed into a corner, you don't have enough trunk space", he warns Max.