Collateral is a few good movies packed into one. Sure the script has its faults, and at times we are forced to suspend a bit more judgement than even Mann should require us to, but hear me out. While it revisits the slick criminal realism that Mann has built his career on, Collateral is also a thoughtful urban chamber drama and an exhilarating tour de force in DV filmmaking. The same cool tones that dominated his classics Manhunter and Heat have become formulaic for Mann. He creates complex levels of passion and vigor that linger right beneath the smooth, taut skin of his manicured visual sequences, and the formula always works. Set against many Hollywood flicks that are content to spend millions on explosive special effects and car chase scenes to shock and awe the audience with ridiculous levels of violence, Mann’s action scenes are almost articulate or artful. A few scenes in Collateral are among the most violent from the American cinema this year, but Mann somehow brings a humanity to them that at times seems an implicit criticism of the thoughtless violence that often passes for film.


Behind this deceptively slick presentation are a few themes neatly developed that enable us to forgive the film’s utterly flimsy conclusion. As a chamber drama that takes place in a taxi, we watch two men from different social and racial backgrounds clashing on a number of fronts. What emerges is a dialogue touching on key cultural nerves in compelling ways, as Cruise and Foxx become an interesting set of polarities that are far too easy to identify with. In Collateral, Mann has crafted his finest urban landscape. By using DV so boldly, the film becomes a seamless garment of the strange, grainy textures distinct to nocturnal digital videography. Collateral comes across as a sort of fever dream, a humid and claustrophobic fiction. It would be far too easy to compare it to the tone of a number of J.G. Ballard short stories, which for a crime thriller is a pretty serious compliment.