Collateral
dir. Michael Mann
New Line Cinema

Michael Mann typically makes a stylish brand of crime movie, sometimes accomplishing the paradigm shift into colorful film noir. His first two films, Thief and Manhunter, were darkly brilliant additions to the genre, notable for their exuberant looks at the evil that lurks in the hearts of even good guys. But after these efforts, he cashed in on TV with "Miami Vice" — crime stories dressed up, dumbed down and accessorized with music-video interludes. It was perhaps a Faustian bargain — Mann's noir lobe has worked erratically ever since. You can see him trying to get up to speed in Collateral, which has flashes of the transcendent old brilliance, but he doesn't quite reach escape velocity.

Part of what's keeping him down to earth is Stuart Beattie's script, which is just plain lame. The fine actors — Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx are the film's principals — manage to make their dialogue sound like the sort of things humans say to one another, but close listening reveals utter nonsense. You barely notice, of course, because Mann overcompensates with the eye candy that's become his trademark: Each frame is interestingly filled as another city spreads itself like a centerfold, and the quirkily glamorous stars hypnotize with their performances. But even casual introspection of Collateral reveals deep cheesiness and paint-by-numbers structure.

Stylish hitman Vincent (Cruise) bumps into a guy in an airport and they "mix up" the identical satchels they're carrying — because nobody would ever read that as a drop, unless of course they'd seen a caper film at some point in their lives. (Vincent later talks heatedly about the bag containing all his arduous prep work, but we're not supposed to wonder why he would have entrusted it so some other guy in the first place.) From this inauspicious beginning, we cut away to neat-freak cab driver Max (Foxx) as he picks up Annie (Jada Pinkett Smith), a smoking-hot federal prosecutor. They immediately place a bet about the better route to downtown Los Angeles. Max wins and Annie seems to be impressed, even turned on, by the fact that this simple cabbie has ever-so-slightly grander ambitions. (Because most cabbies, waiters, valets, etc., in LA do not?) They bond right there on the 110. But Annie never pays off on the bet; she gives him her card instead. This seems very wrong in a crime flick — nobody in the world of Thief, for instance, would ever, ever forget any bet, no matter how small or casual — and is an early indication that Mann is off his game.

Vincent is Max's next fare, kidnapping him for a crime spree. It seems Vincent is an especially prolific hitman, one who likes to take out a lot of different targets on single lucrative evenings. Together the pair form a sort of Bizarro World Crockett and Tubbs. Pretty soon both Max and Vincent are being pursued by Detective Fanning, a nearly unrecognizable but still fascinating Mark Ruffalo. The body count climbs faster than Fallujah's as Vincent mows down marks and bystanders with dizzying indifference. For Cruise, the role isn't much of a stretch; he's just doing the dark side of his Mission: Impossible guy. He gets to be dapper, glib, super-lethal and borderline erudite — Vincent apparently got as far as the sophomore seminar in existentialism where he read Camus, and flourishes some jazz-geek trivia in the kind of walk-down dive a proper noir always passes through. It's fun to see Saint Tom revel in the hitman's unalloyed badness, although it's another nuance-free performance from the last actor who should ever play Hamlet.

The plot, such as it is, proceeds almost straight ahead in one night's steady escalation of mayhem. We don't have to feel bad about any of the many deaths depicted because they're either nobodies, lowlifes or both, and in almost all cases ethnic minorities besides. (The one death that gets a line of real lamentation is a white cop's, which seems politically insensitive.) A plot point is arbitrarily inserted when Max, heretofore a whiny, paralytic mama's boy, morphs into a badass, because … that's just what the hero does, presumably. Soon thereafter, just before the most spectacular shootout, the action slows down — we get a deeply ominous shot of the best-groomed coyotes in LA, and then, just when the suspense should be building, there's a lugubrious musical interlude featuring Paul Oakenfold's "Ready Steady Go" that's maybe the worst in cinema history. Alas, this is about what we can expect from post-"Miami" Mann, and the bungle achieves a level of cognitive dissonance that makes the often-excellent Oakenfold sound like a failed mope-rocker. (At least this one stink can't be blamed on the writer ….) When frenetic gunfire finally drowns out the ridiculous noise, it's a profoundly welcome relief.

It's all very active. It's an action film, after all, albeit not even close to the loudest, stupidest one out this summer. It's almost redeemed by the A-level talents involved. Maybe Mann will one day leave behind both the dreary earnestness of The Insider and Ali and the clichés of "Miami Vice" — the drug kingpin in the vast nightclub surrounded by black-suited henchmen, the bumbling Feds being shown up by the renegade cop, the intrusive music video and the sophomoric script are all on display in Collateral — and use his considerable clout to make tight, nihilistic little masterpieces again. But I wouldn't bet cab fare to LAX on it.

— David Essex (djessex@earthlink.net)