Collateral review

After the admirable but forgettable Ali, Michael Mann returns to familiar ground with his new film: the murky underworld of Los Angeles. Fans of his earlier films Thief and Heat now have a third, arguably better, film to add to Mann's LA trilogy, and it's one of the most impressive films about a hitman since Melville's seminal Le Samourai, sharing a metaphysical outlook on the killer's mentality with the 1967 French classic.

Shot using high-definition cameras which seem to heighten both the beauty and menace of LA , Collateral is set over the course of one night. In a remarkable performance (which deserves an Oscar nomination at the very least), Jamie Foxx plays Max, a veteran cabbie who always looks on the bright side of life without doing anything to actually attain it. After a brief encounter with a sexy lawyer (another impressive turn by Jada Pinkett Smith), Max makes a big mistake by picking up his next fare.

Vincent steps into his car, and we know we are in for a different ride when we see a silver-haired Tom Cruise ordering Max to drive around town all night. It soon becomes evident that Vincent has some extraordinary business on his mind, and his specific targets that night involve guns, bullets and ultimately, Max's life.

On the face of it, Collateral is about two men riding around Los Angeles at night in a car. However, it is full of expertly crafted set-pieces - notably a stunning shoot out set in a busy nightclub - and extremely taut dialogue. Stuart Beattie's screenplay takes the predictable and makes it continuously surprising, and the conversation between the killer and cab driver becomes a running theme. " I kill one Angelino and you throw a hissy fit", complains Vincent, as Max becomes increasingly desperate to escape his determined and amoral (yet perfectly logical) fare.

While Cruise impresses as the evil but sane Vincent, it's arguably thanks to his generosity that Foxx shines so much. He perfectly captures the easy-going attitude that has made him a cab driver for twelve years, and Cruise brilliantly and interminably picks away at his psyche. Interestingly, it's the first time (outside of the Mission Impossible films) that Cruise has played a character with the same Christian name, and it's just possible to see some of the 'I can do anything attitude' that marked out the Vincent of The Color of Money in his supremely confident Vincent of Collateral.

While the conclusion may draw niggles from those who like to see a tightly crafted plot, it's clear that Collateral isn't really about shootouts at all: it asks some important questions about life, and particularly man's desire to accept the status quo. It's a wholly memorable affair which will be looked back upon as one of the highlights of the cinematic year.