Collateral: Or, Jamie Foxx Outfoxes the fox
By Tom Dempster

To be quite honest, I am still securely on the fence about this one. Like so many undecided American voters (you poor bastards), I am highly undecided whether I enjoyed this movie or was so annoyed with the ponderous ending that I wanted to wretch all over Tom Cruise’s anchorman hair.

On one hand, the film is rather well-shot. Apparently, it was done totally with digital video – and there have been problems with this in the past, and the first well-crafted movie in my book using DV was “28 Days Later.” (Sky Wanker used DV, but to less well-done results) “Collateral,” shot only at night with minimal editing, provides a viewer with a host of classic and somewhat novel camera techniques, framing scenes rather well with a uniquely urban and dark mask applied. Shots are still rich despite low light, and color treatment used to enhance certain aspects of the film is effective and tasteful.

On the other hand, there’s the case of the executioner-script-gone-haywire. I would like to think that a man bent on terminating all his rivals and cohorts at the behest of a carjacked taxi-driver could end up on a dark and serious note – not something that reminds me of the Terminator or some other light fare. Some of the dialogue breaks the character of Cruise and Foxx without adding any dynamism to the surprising flatness in both.

On the other hand, though, Jamie Foxx proves he has some range. Though not formidable in the least, he is, at the very minimum, believable in his hesitance, fear, and quizzicality toward the hell-bent Cruise. But he's still a little too well-dressed to be a taxi-driver.

On the other hand, again, Cruise portrays his character a little too much like a Bret Easton Ellis character, and ends up absorbing some out-of-place character elements from “American Psycho.” I cannot easily see Cruise as a likeable meanie-bobeanie going around whacking his rivals without chuckling a little bit. I can, however, very easily see a less superstar-status actor – like Kurtwood Smith, or even James Spader – as a mildly-eccentric-in-normal-life but off-his-nut vengeance wreaker. The somewhat sudden yet predictable flip at the end – that is to say, Cruise decides to save a last victim – is stupendously overdone, and the false notes of mercy for his targets Cruise displays from the onset predicts this.

I can’t decide about this movie. I suppose I will have to when I’m confronted with it when it shows up on video.