Michael Mann's (The Insider, The Last of the Mohicans) manner of pacing and visual exploration is back with Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx as its acting team in "Collateral," a picture fairly difficult to label into a genre.

Highly entertaining, Foxx (Ray) plays Max, a part time cab driver, who is taken semi-hostage while Cruise (The Last Samurai), playing a hitman for hire named Vincent, makes five stops before catching a flight out of Los Angeles. During his stops, he assassinates witness for a federal prosecution case against a druglord called "The Felix."

LAPD's narcotics team is hot on the trail of Vincent and Max, giving the audience hope that Max will get saved from the situation. However, in the end Max must save himself and Vincent's last target, the case's prosecuting attorney named Annie, played by Jada Pinkett Smith (Bamboozled).

The picture is very intense from the moment Cruise gets into Foxx's cab. The timing of the picture is not as slow as most Mann's previous works, i.e. "Ali" and "Heat." However, there are a handful of editing sequences which seem to suggest Mann would rather work in music videos.

Plus, Mann has several shots during the picture's "driving" scenes which are loaded with open space and little focus. It leaves me searching for a reason for such shots, and I've yet to come up with answers. For now, they seem silly.

Cruise's makeup job in this picture appears to try and represent him as an older gentlemen, but Cruise's physical and vocal characterization of Vincent is still younger and athletic than his look. My assessment is, Vincent, as a professional hit man, has died his hair this way so if any witnesses attempt to identify him, cops will be searching for an older man and not someone who looks like he would normally. However, there's no text in the movie to support that, so Cruise's look is consistently unusual, almost distracting.

Foxx could have gone several directions with his character. He could have attempted to play the superhero role, but when Max ends up handling a gun, it is obvious he's uncomfortable doing so. Max's moments of heroism were very believable. In fact, I must say the believability factor in "Collateral" was very high overall.

Foxx's cab suffers damage after Vincent's first kill, which he is later pulled over by the cops for having a busted windshield. This would definitely be the case in reality. Had the filmmakers not put this in, I would have thought less of their efforts. It is little scenes like that which make the picture credible. There's no big miraculous defiance of physics in the climax, just Vincent and Max emptying clips through the doors of an empty subway car. The moment was over in a matter of seconds and our outcome is delivered without sensationalism. Some may call the picture anti-climactic, but I think almost every turn in the plot, including how it ended, was established inevitably. My biggest problem with the movie is its title. I just don't see how the word "collateral" has anything to do with the story. I don't see the relevance. Oh well.

One of my favorite performances came from Mark Ruffalo (13 Going on 30) as LAPD's narcotics detective, a semi-stereotyped cop who always feels the evidence is always pointing in a direction ALL the other cops and federal agents aren't willing to accept. Thank goodness our movie police forces have those guys among their ranks, otherwise no criminal would EVER get caught. Ruffalo stuck out like a soar thumb, and I found it funny.

Academy Award® nominee Javier Bardem (Before Night Falls) makes a cameo as The Felix and delivers an amusing analogy about Santa's Mexican helper Pedro.

All in all, I was pleasantly surprised with "Collateral," even though it seems to get misguided in areas of act two and conventional in act three. However, in my opinion, both Cruise and Mann have better work in their resumes.

Benn - Where's the Humanity?