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Collateral
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Posted by Chris_in_the_Valley (My Page) on Mon, Sep 6, 04 at 19:48
| Surprised at how much I liked this movie. Anyone else see it yet? Reminded me very much of Blade Runner, but I'm not sure why, The death scene at the end was very reminiscent of the Rutger Hauer death in BR. But there is more at the edges of my awareness that connect the two movies. Both have a list of those to be terminated, both multicultural, but what else? |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Collateral
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| Chris, with all due respect, perhaps u should use the preamble 'Spoilers' when posting, 'cause some of us have not seen it yet!! :) |
RE: Collateral
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| Clairabelle, the previews make very clear that there are a lot of deaths in this movie. I've said nothing that isn't in the preview and every review of the movie. |
RE: Collateral
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| I saw it and liked it very much. Tom Cruise always surprises me as a bad guy. He was positively feral! Collateral is a nice oasis in a somewhat dry movie summer. |
RE: Collateral
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| I think I'm the only person who didn't really like this movie. I was very disappointed with it. SPOILERS WITHIN: First, I found the forced relationship between the two sounded like it was written from a textbook. The "poignant" lines (or realizations) were way too pop culture and Dr. Phil"ish" and IMHO not profound in the least bit, but almost laughable because they were too textbook. A movie of this subject matter had an open road of "things" and thoughts that could have happened but it resorted to the way we "the audience" thought and wanted the movie to come out. Second, I thought Max's decisions of when to, or not to run, etc.. were all over the board..sometimes he acted smart, sometimes like a complete idiot. It just wasn't written well. BIG SPOILERS:
Third, The ending was just like any other movie...Nothing spectacular and they had so much to work with. I actually think it would have been a decent movie if when Max flipped the Taxi, they both would have died. When I saw it, I thought, finally, a redeeming scene...Max dies and takes the killer with him to save the innocent...But, no, of course, they had to both be alive to continue the predictable good rules over bad, good guy saves the girl in a very drawn out ending. Fourth, I think it would have been valuable to establish a little bit more about the victims. I mean, I guess they were all witnesses but were they "bad" too. I was left not caring when one died and in a movie like this, the audience should have felt more grief (like in Natural Born Killers) when the people die. I mean I actually found myself almost routing for Tom's character to get the jobs done. I just didn't think this movie was anything special and all. I did like the acting and thought Tom looked very sleek in all grey but hey that doesn't make a good movie. |
RE: Collateral
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| It is beyond me how we can talk about movies (which is what I thought we were doing here) if we can't mention stuff that happens in the movies without somebody getting weirded out about spoilers. If you haven't seen a movie and don't want to know what happened in it, don't open the thread - that's my motto. That said, I thought this flick was OK for a Saturday night video, but nothing profound. I don't think Tom makes it as a hit man. Jamie Fox was good, but the writing, as someone said was lacking. It really strained credulity for the hit man to decide to go to the hospital to see the cabby's mother! That was ridiculous. |
RE: Collateral
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| He had to go to the hospital in order to gain control over the cab driver. He needed Max to keep driving, so he couldn't threaten to kill him. The threat of harming his mother (since now he knows where she is) was "collateral" as she posed as the commodity interest to the driver. Max's love interest was also collateral. I hated the general script writing because the movie could have been better like Carla said. But, I liked the way Cruise's character weaved himself in and out of the driver's life. Carla, I think you were very kind to warn people about the spoilers. That gives us the option as opposed to not bothering to read here in the Circle Theater at all. |
RE: Collateral
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| I see what you're saying, bestlawn, but I don't think a hit man would go to the trouble of going to the hospital. He already had control of Max. The way they explained it in the film was that the mother's suspicion would be aroused if Max didn't show up, but the Cruise character could have had Max call and make an excuse, which would have made more sense. About spoilers: I was reacting to Clairabelle's comment, not Carla's warning. Didn't mean to be so pompous - but I do think my idea is a good one. |
RE: Collateral
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| Not a regular here but posting because, surprisingly, I loved watching this movie, apart from it being Cruise's Next Big Project. Perhaps expectations are less when a movie is rented and not seen in the first flush of critical overkill, but Michael Mann is the kind of accomplished director who's work is always worth watching. I can see how it might bring up echoes of Blade Runner, but to me the movie it most dredged up was Taxi Driver, not only for the differing dramatic uses made of the two taxi drivers, Travis Bickel and the Jamie Fox character, but more for the use of cars as, in this movie, agents of fantasy, disconnect, and passivity, and how the world is distorted and ultimately inaccessible to the driver, always peering out the windshield, distanced. Nice guy but ineffectual and unable to act on his dreams in Fox's case and just plain sociopathic in Bickel's case. In Collateral Cruise was the sociopath, though with more charm and less mohawk. And Mann's signature slow tracking shots of gleaming cars in the night knock me out. It became cheesy and overdone in Miami Vice but was fresh and dead-on for Collateral. Fox was riveting, and Cruise held up his end admirably. I didn't get too wrapped up in the plot twists because, for me, the movie was a kick just to watch. Not a great movie, but certainly rentable! |
RE: Collateral
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| We just rented this and watched it last night. I would recommend it to those who like suspense films. The story told was interesting and kept my attention all the way through (not always the case for me in this genre). I enjoyed seeing Tom Cruise playing a different kind of character than he usually does. Jamie Foxx was believable in his part -- I felt nervous and concerned for his character's plight. The location was right near where I work and it was fun to the story play out in the context of places that are familiar to me. |
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