Michael Mann understands the good versus evil paradigm, a skill that has served him well for many decades. His latest film Collateral, pits goods against evil in the most benign of places, a LA taxi cab.<\/p>\n
Jamie Foxx plays an ordinary man catapulted into an extraordinary dilemma: for the next 2 hours his only fare is on a mission to kill 5 people before catching a flight out of LAX. As an added twist, Tom Cruise is the villain, a job description that suits Cruise. He approaches the role with such skill it’s hard to believe he spent 20 years playing good guys.<\/p>\n
What works about this film:<\/p>\n
1) Concept \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it’s a fresh backdrop.<\/p>\n
2) Acting \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Cruise delivers a skilled performance.<\/p>\n
3) Cinematography \u00e2\u20ac\u201c not since To Live and Die in LA has a filmmaker portrayed the city in such a glossy and gritty light.<\/p>\n
But there’s a few caveats with Collateral too…<\/p>\n
1) Jamie Foxx is miscast here. He’s a comic who has yet to master the dramedy.<\/p>\n
2) Plot \u00e2\u20ac\u201c there’s a few holes in the story plot wise.<\/p>\n
3) Pacing \u00e2\u20ac\u201c some of the narrative could’ve have been streamlined.<\/p>\n
Verdict: Matinee or DVD it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Michael Mann understands the good versus evil paradigm, a skill that has served him well for many decades. His latest film Collateral, pits goods against evil in the most benign of places, a LA taxi cab. Jamie Foxx plays an ordinary man catapulted into an extraordinary dilemma: for the next 2 hours his only fare […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}