I was going to jump right in, watching a few more episodes of Reign before it came off of streaming. When I flipped on Netflix, I was hit by the suggestion that I really wanted to watch the 2004 film Collateral. And really, I did.
For whatever reason, over the last few months, YouTube has been pushing clips from this movie on me. I had watched Collateral around the time when it came out on DVD and very much liked it. As the years passed, though, I’d pretty much forgotten the experience. It took the scene, analyzed below, to remind me that, yes, this flick was very good and I would like to see it again.
The first time I found myself watching a YouTube clip of the above scene, there wasn’t really that much else out there from the movie – it seemed to me that Dreamworks had locked up their IP pretty tight. In recent weeks, however, I started noticing more and more out there (and, oddly enough, much of it posted a while ago). The more I found, the more I got a hankering to just watch the whole movie again from start to finish. Then, bang, there it is on Netflix starting the first of September.
I’ve got to wondering if it all isn’t connected. That is – did Netflix, having just acquired the streaming rights, maybe pay YouTube to build up interest among Collateral‘s potential customers? Anyone with access to my browser history knows I have a soft spot for these assassin-themed movies. Was this all part of a plan to get me primed (tee hee) to watch a movie just as Netflix made it available to me? Was it to get me to sign up for Netflix if, perhaps, I wasn’t already?
Intentionally or serendipitously, I watched immediately. At least as of this morning, I have not yet canceled my Netflix subscription.
Now before continuing on I’m going to stop you. If you haven’t seen Collateral yet, maybe you should just watch it. Part of what rewards you in this film is the shock of seeing things you hadn’t realized. I would think watching Collateral only after having read the synopsis or being exposed to the spoilers would degrade the experience. If you’ve already seen it or don’t plan to, then feel free to read on.
The short synopsis of the movie is this. A cab driver who dreams of better is played by Jamie Foxx. Cabbie Max has driven the streets of Los Angeles for 12 years and knows them well. He picks up a fare, Vincent (Tom Cruise), who offers to double Max’s daily pay in exchange for driving him, Vincent, around for his entire night of business and then returning him to the airport in the morning. Max soon finds out that Vincent’s business is killing people.
Before I had access to the full movie, my piecemeal viewing was accompanied by film descriptions; which I read. These summaries of the film indicated that Vincent is the bad guy – which he is. Moreover, he is described as something terrible – a killer with no conscience or morals; an evil you wouldn’t recognize if you passed him on the street. He is a horror akin to Arnold’s Terminator (“[He] can’t be bargained with. [C]an’t be reasoned with. [D]oesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And [he] absolutely will not stop, ever…”). But is that how we see him? Is that how I see him?
The fact that the list of assassin-as-main-character movies is long** suggests that this isn’t the case. Surely all these movies wherein the paid killer is the most sympathetic character isn’t just a quirk of my own viewing history. Just as Star Wars fans all loved Darth Vader, don’t many of us all secretly admire the amoral killer (even if just a little) who has perfected his craft so as to do those things that none of us are capable of? Admit it or not, but the films in this genre are so numerous and so popular as to make my case for me.
With Vincent, the film masterfully manipulates us. When we first see Cruise on the screen, we’re predisposed to like him. He’s generally the hero of the blockbuster films he stars in, so there’s that. He’s also articulate and friendly – traits we associate with good character. In a brilliant bit of filmmaking, the violence is all off screen. Even if we suspect what Vincent has been up to, we haven’t seen it with our own eyes. Can we really condemn him without having been a witness?
Then, when Vincent’s violence finally materializes (the above YouTube sequence), what do we have? Yes, we must realize that Vincent is a cold and violent killer, but whom does he kill? His “victims” are a pair of tweakers who themselves are willing to kill innocent bystanders to rob and intimidate. Isn’t Vincent’s precise execution of these low-lifes exactly what they had coming to them. Is this perhaps, at a gut level, a more just outcome than that which would be served up by our “system?”
We then learn that Vincent’s hit list consists of criminals involved in the drug trade; albeit criminals that have flipped on their superiors are set to testify for the government. Once again, it might be hard to see Vincent as the evil one when his targets are themselves genuinely and unquestionably bad.
But then the filmmakers try to turn us. We watch as one of his targets pleads to be allowed to live and, after Vincent promises him just that, he kills him anyway. That act illuminates an earlier mention of what might just be an earlier Vincent job – a similar night of killing which ended in the the death of a cabbie (staged suicide?). Is Vincent lying to Max when he assures them that they’ll both “live through the night?” Almost assuredly.
At last it is revealed to us who Vincent’s final target shall be. It is none other than the lawyer portrayed by Jada Pinkett Smith, a U.S. Attorney and (in most people’s worlds) unequivocally one of the “good guys.” How many were pulling for Vincent to finish his job and get away before they found out this last piece? How many still hoped Vincent could pull it off, even after you knew? OK… you don’t have to admit it but I know you’re out there.
What’s more interesting than our fascination with fantasy crime is this inability to admit that we are, in fact, fascinated. Maybe all those reviewers really did hate and fear Vincent from the get-to, but the popularity of the genre plus the occasional (see footnote), unambiguous casting of assassin as hero begs to differ.
I’m also left wondering whether these super-assassins have any basis in reality whatsoever. When we read about a crime syndicate’s paid killers, they usually come off considerably less glamorous than a Jackal or a Vincent or a John Wick. It is certainly plausible that war-on-terror retirees find a second career as highly-skilled, highly paid experts. Such a vocation might be made to last longer if one could operate as a shadowy figure – unknown even to those that hire him. It makes for good film, but does it ever really happen? Wouldn’t we have heard something about it if it had?
Then again, how many trial witnesses and other inconvenient people have just disappeared of the years. Are mob bosses just lucky, or does a lot more go on in this world than we know. It isn’t out of the realm of possibility that there are far, far more unsolved “hits” than there are known hits. This would imply there are far more unknown hitmen out there than those that make the news. But here’s the thing. I’d say we’re much better off if all of these super-assassins really are nothing but fantasy. We don’t really want to be rooting for real-life contract killers, now do we?
Oh yeah. Game pairing: Hitman: Contracts?
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*There’s another YouTube video, taken from the DVD extras, which discusses how much work Cruise put into this scene and others. Cruise may have his faults but I have to admit he is an accomplished film actor. Watching Collateral, I am reminded of what impressed me so much in my recent, repeat view of A Few Good Men. It is, yes, the courtroom scene between Cruise and Nicholson, but the key moment is when Nicholson finally admits to “ordering the Code Red.” The camera turns to Cruise who says nothing, does nothing – but you see it in his eyes. Cruise’s Kaffee may have been working toward exactly this outcome but part of him didn’t believe that Col. Jessup would actually crack. His face shows shock – disbelief that he actually succeeded. That right there is better acting than a hundred “I want the truths.” Likewise, much of Cruise’s success in Collateral stems from what he doesn’t do or say.
**Off the top of my head, and in no particular order, I dug The Day of the Jackal, Léon: The Professional, Killing Them Softly, The Matador, Grosse Pointe Blank, In Bruges, The American, and the John Wick series. An article I just read held up Pulp Fiction, not only as an assassin movie, but the movie that brought assassin movies back into vogue.