My thoughts on what makes Collateral a modern masterpiece. Transcript: "Collateral was released in 2004 just ten years ago, starring Tom Cruise and Jami Foxx as the main leads, directed by the genius Michael Mann whose made classics like Heat and The Insider and with his upcoming film Blackhat releasing early next year. If you’ve watched Michael Mann’s films, you realize his style is very distinct, and is quite unlike any other director working today, his films have a style over substance feel to them, with his fetish of using the color blue through out his films and using ambient synth like music, which makes his flicks rather unique. Collateral is an important part of movie industry’s growth, being the first major movie to use digital cameras to film around 85% of the scenes, since the storyline of Collateral is set at night. Michael Mann took this to his advantage and used Viper FilmStream HD Cameras to shoot around Los Angles, and the payoff was great! The cinematography is absolutely stunning, Collateral feels like a movie ahead of its time, the LA nightlife comes alive and makes the city a character itself with the wonderful lighting, it has this real feel of a dreamy atmosphere, the locations are perfect with nearly every scene having the LA skyline in background which standard film cameras wouldn’t be able to capture. I personally find this to be Tom Cruise’s best movie to date, his performance as the grey haired anti-hero Vincent is so unlike any of his other performances being the villain instead of the usual hero, his character is so menacing you forget you’re watching Tom Cruise. Cruise and Foxx have remarkable chemistry together, With Vincent keeping Foxx’s character Max a hostage behind his own cab to take Vincent around stops for the people he has been contracted to kill in one night. The writing between these two talking to each other is so investing, you feel the power in Vincent’s speeches and lectures against Max when he tells him what he will do if he doesn’t cooperate, which also shows with his actions. Cruise’s choreography marks right on point, like as a such as the briefcase scene that occurs, which Michael Mann attention to detail, made sure that would be well trained by Mick Gould for the action sequences which including showing him how to fire live rounds with various weapons so he knew how to direct the action sequences to full effect, using also real live firearm sounds in the film. Overall Collateral is a exceedingly underrated masterpiece, everything works well in this film, nothing is offbeat, it is one of the best movies of the last decade, if you haven’t seen Collateral already I highly recommend that you do, you won’t be disappointed." I give full credit to the scenes used in this video. I do not claim any of the material to be my own.

• published: 30 Oct 2014
• views: 2705