Collateral Reviews
Throughout the gruesome cat-and-mouse game being played by Vincent and Max in Collateral, there's something psychologically, dramatically and even sociologically interesting going on.
This is a tense, first-rate thriller.
Most of the time we are with Cruise and Foxx, and their interplay is never less than galvanizing.
After that promising start, Collateral ratchets down, gradually, to being only average.
If Collateral is all formula, it's polished to a fine sheen.
Collateral is the best kind of genre filmmaking: It plays by the rules, obeys the traditions and is both familiar and fresh at once.
[Tom Cruise has] never been this convincingly wicked.
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| Original Score: 4/5
It's straight-up entertainment, not something to see and then talk about a month later, but definitely something to enjoy.
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| Original Score: 3/4
The best thing Mann brings to his picture is a strong sense of time and place.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Collateral isn't a shockingly original motion picture. But the strength of the lead performances and the stylish direction of Michael Mann obscure the weaknesses in plotting and credibility.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Feels a lot like the sort of stock, early-'80s thrillers that Mann once tried to make extinct.
Though it is a far less ambitious entertainment than Tarantino's masterpiece, it has its moments.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Collateral is a small, modest movie writ large by people so talented, they aren't capable of anything less.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Mann brings some of the style and assurance he brought to Heat and Thief.
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| Original Score: B
A fairly typical bang-bang exercise with outrageous shootouts, lots of dead bodies and well-placed comic relief.
| Original Score: C+
Collateral takes us on a wild night ride through Los Angeles.
| Original Score: B+
A suspense thriller with little real suspense and few thrills.
This is a rare thriller that's as much character study as sound and fury.
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| Original Score: 3.5/4
Collateral is the kind of sleek Maserati that can make men weak in the knees, but the sad truth is that it has a straight-4 under the hood.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
Mann never lets the audience settle into familiar patterns, crafting a moody, mesmerizing battle between good and evil.
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| Original Score: 4/5
Reminiscent of the orchestrated mayhem of vintage John Woo, this is showpiece kinetic filmmaking.
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| Original Score: 3/4
A stirring two-hour footnote to [Mann's] masterpiece Heat.
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| Original Score: 3.5/4
It's too bad that halfway through, Collateral turns into a series of loud, chaotic, over-the-top action set pieces in which the existentialist Mann proves he's lousy at action.
Mann puts Collateral through its paces so elegantly that even the most predictable scenes deliver a wallop.
| Original Score: 3.5/4
Los Angeles Times
Top CriticCollateral crackles with energy and purpose, a propulsive film with character on its mind and confident men and women on both sides of the camera.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4.5/5
Pitched between interludes of anxious intimacy and equally nerve-shredding set pieces, Michael Mann's edgy new thriller scores its points with underhand precision.
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| Original Score: 4/5
As much a dark, odd couple comedy as it is a quirky, efficient little thriller.
Mann hits a new peak, orchestrating action, atmosphere and bruising humor with a poet's eye for urban darkness.
| Original Score: 3.5/4
[Jamie Foxx is] the reason to see Collateral, as he walks into the frame and walks off with the picture.
| Original Score: 3/4
Newsday
Top CriticMann's film makes Tom Cruise fun to watch again, because he occasionally plays someone besides Tom Cruise.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
Collateral has such classy trappings, you're constantly expecting more -- but while there may be less here than meets the eye, this is solid stuff in the midst of Hollywood's dog days.
| Original Score: 3/4
As violent thrillers go, Collateral goes down quite nicely, stirring up hardly any acid reflux at all.
A thing of lean, cool beauty, the movie's a killer showcase for Foxx and Cruise.
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| Original Score: A
Cruise and Foxx are so good together because they allow the two characters to get under each other's skin. They're buddies and enemies at the same time.
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| Original Score: B+
A slim drink of thin beer, remarkable only as evidence that Mann might have a modern masterpiece in him if he were cut loose and allowed to roam around in his own obsessions.
Mann has become a master builder of sequences, the opposite of the contemporary action directors who produce a brutally meaningless whirl of movement.
This intensely focused piece soars not only on the director's precision-tooled style but also on the outstanding interplay between leads Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx.
A high-concept thriller with no other agenda. Nevertheless, it is quite a ride.
