Collateral

"Max" (Jamie Foxx) is one of those cabbies you'd probably never want. Although he knows his way around LA like the back of his hand, he has opinions on just about everything and that would just drive me mad. It does not, however, bother "Annie" (Jada Pinkett Smith), a prosecutor working for Uncle Sam who makes and loses a bet with him about the best route to take to her destination. He's a curious fellow, "Max", with an almost naive expectation of what his life might deliver for him. He has been behind the wheel for over a decade, latterly earning money to pay his ailing mother's medical bills, but he sees this as just a stop-gap measure before he advances to something else. What dream might that be? Well perhaps the offer of $600 from one customer to be his exclusive hire for the evening might help? That's what the respectable looking "Vincent" (Tom Cruise) offers him. All he will have to do is drive him to half a dozen locations across the city, wait a few moments at each while he conducts some business, then get him to LAX for an early flight next day. How hard can that be? Well the first stop sees a body try some bungee jumping off the roof of his cab - only without any rope, and he quickly discovers that his employer's "business" isn't entirely legit. His options are distinctly limited, though, and so he must continue to co-operate whilst trying to find some way to escape. Meantime, LA's finest FBI agent "Fanning" (Mark Ruffalo) is investigating the first hit of the night so perhaps with him also working on the case there is hope that "Max" won't end up floating in the ocean at the end, too? Though at times this is a little procedural, the pace of this thriller and a really solid effort from Foxx helps create something just a little more mysterious as their night goes on and his day goes somewhat more full circle than he might have expected with "Annie". I can't say I really loved the denouement as it did what so many of this genre does and lost the courage of it's more malevolent convictions as it ended, but along the way this is quite an entertainingly menacing ride that allows Cruise to play the bad boy dipped in Grecian 2000 charismatically; for Foxx to prove that "Max" ain't no pushover and that Los Angelino taxis are robust bits of kit!