Collateral UHD Steelbook Review

Collateral, an intense, absorbing, and thrilling cinematic experience, contains superb lead performances by Foxx and Cruise and strong supporting performances by Ruffalo, Pinkett-Smith, Berg, Javier Bardem, and others. A few minor players here would make their way into Mann’s excellent but short-lived CBS drama, Robbery Homicide Division, a show that employed this film’s aesthetic. That aesthetic is an intrinsic part of Collateral, bringing a cinematic reality to the story’s tension. Paramount has re-released the same 4K content previously available with a new Steelbook packaging for the film’s 20^th anniversary. The new packaging replicates the previous cover almost exactly, so the design may not be alluring for previous owners, but if having that cold steel box sitting on your shelves is, then it might be for you.

The Production: 4/5

“Don’t get me cornered. You don’t have the trunk space.”

Tom Cruise stars as Vincent, a cold contract killer in Los Angeles for one night of work. Chance, perhaps fate, sets him in the taxi driven by Max (Jamie Foxx), where he coerces the kind cabbie to make five stops so that he can complete his ‘5 jobs’. Max tries several times to escape his dire situation, but each failure reaps more bloodshed. Max must find a way to stop the killing and save himself before the night ends. Cruise is at his darkest and perhaps most surprising as the pepper-haired hitman. Setting the events throughout one night maintains a palpable tension and cohesiveness to the drama, rendering Collateral one of director Michael Mann’s most potent films.

Beyond the killer/cabbie partnership in which Jamie Foxx’s Max is the unwilling participant, Collateral is built around the verbal dynamic between the characters. Hit after hit, Max struggles with his fear of the out-of-control predicament he finds himself in, and Cruise’s Vincent takes it all in stride. Additional strands of plot and story – such as the L.A. detectives (Mark Ruffalo, Peter Berg) playing catch up through the crime scenes left behind and the honest and natural attraction and connection Max experienced with Annie (played by the criminally underrated Jada Pinkett Smith), a ride whom he had just dropped off when he picked up Vincent, flesh out the world of Mann’s L.A. and add dimension to an already compelling film.

Michael Mann’s filming technique and the cameras used on Collateral were the direct results of his experience in producing quality. Still, the short-lived CBS show Robbery Homicide Division – hand-held, natural/city lighting used as the primary or sole source, a very spur-of-the-moment sense of filmmaking sufficiently apt for the scene and story. There is a distinct favoring of mosaic shots, setting a mood and tone to the picture. Snaps of city streets and streetlights bleeding across the car windows, the unnaturally electric lights of Los Angeles establishing a cold, unknowing outside that Foxx’s character can only feel ignored by. It is a spectacular form for this thriller to have taken. Mann would seek to accomplish the same sense in 2006’s big screen adaptation of Miami Vice – but an excess of the style coupled with characters audiences could not recognize or connect to – doomed that venture. In Collateral – we so quickly identify with Max and become invested in him surviving his unsettling circumstances that, despite finding some sense of awe of Cruise’s Vincent, we root for the cabbie wholeheartedly.

Though Collateral is often cited as the rare occasion when Tom Cruise sheds his likable good-guy image to play an icy killer, Jamie Foxx’s everyman performance stands the furthest out. Foxx demonstrates excellent maturity and ability as the cabbie is thrust into a grim nightmare chauffeuring a hitman around Los Angeles, and this role is a beautiful foreshadowing of his Oscar-winning turn as Ray Charles.

Collateral is a collision, a conflagration of the impenetrably stoic and sterile killer instincts of Vincent and the calm and open-hearted, likable Max. The dynamic that exists between them, as it ebbs and flows between tenuous connection and diametric opposites – is the engine that fuels this thrilling, superbly gripping film.

Video: 4.5/5

3D Rating: NA

There is no change here from the previous 4K release. Collateral, framed at 2.40:1 in Ultra-High Definition, is an exciting experience. This isn’t an obvious choice to show off the format’s goodies. Yet director Mann and his cinematographers Dione Beebe and Paul Cameron are working to make a digital-looking cinematic experience, shooting with high-definition cameras almost entirely at night, offering something unique.

Detail gets an edge over the previous Blu-ray release with consistent and stable grain, but the shooting choices mean that gains are as apparent. The reliance on the street and other naturally occurring artificial light as the primary source has always given Collateral a unique character, a fluorescent artifice that’s embraced and serves the narrative perfectly. Interior scenes, particularly inside the jazz club, offer the best example of what this UHD version has to offer.

Black levels are deeper and more pronounced throughout courtesy of the Dolby Vision grading (along with HDR10), and skin tones are a hair closer to natural. This 4K release gives us a clearer view of what Collateral could and should look like under the most ideal circumstances to present Mann’s vision.

Audio: 5/5

Paramount delivers Collateral with the same strong DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio option. Precious little non-naturally occurring sound is to be heard during the film, so the ambient sounds collectively provide the bulk of what we hear. Heavily focused on dialogue, the center channel offers the lion’s share. Bursts of sound – from falling victims onto cars or gunshots that echo loudly in suburban settings – ring around the speakers wonderfully. Club music prompts the subwoofer to kick in occasionally, but the real power of this audio is the ambient sounds of city life at night. It is in the quiet moments where whispers of the world outside of Vincent and Max creep in that this audio shines – in its restraint.

Special Features: 3.5/5

Commentary by Director Michael Mann: Michael Mann is known for his perfectionism, his meticulous attention to detail, and his pursuit of very particular elements when shooting his pictures (even when such details don’t appear to be meaningful to others) – and so this commentary is an excellent opportunity to hear the director himself explain and express his perspective and reasoning for many things. This commentary represents a superb dissection of the film and the type of film that Mann was making. Mann has made many great films – Heat and Manhunter, among others- and hearing him talk about film, purpose, and the meaning of his mise en scène is a genuine treat.

City of Night: The Making of Collateral (40:58): This surprisingly in-depth making of features interviews with Director Michael Mann and the principal stars discuss the film, the element of chance, the reasons of fate, and the intriguing story and skill of the director.

Shooting on Location: Annie’s Office (2:24): As we listen to director Michael Mann, this special feature pulls back to the essentials of the story Mann is telling, that of a hunter with extreme skill prowling the unsuspecting city of Los Angeles at night while the world goes on unaware.

Tom Cruise & Jamie Foxx Rehearse (4:13): This is interesting footage of Cruise and Foxx rehearsing the key first hit scene.

Visual Effects: MTA Train (2:27): Mann’s attention to detail is fully displayed here as he discusses customizing the background visual effects as the train travels through the city.

Special Delivery (1:09): This interesting (and extremely brief) special feature follows Tom Cruise disguised as a Fed-Ex delivery guy in an experiment to have the hugely recognizable face of Cruise blend into the crowd as his Vincent character is designed to do.

Deleted Scene with Commentary (1:58): Mann talks about a scene excised from the final cut and the decision to leave it out to maintain the momentum of the other story elements.

Teaser and Theatrical Trailer

Overall: 4/5

Collateral, an intense, absorbing, and thrilling cinematic experience, contains superb lead performances by Foxx and Cruise and strong supporting performances by Ruffalo, Pinkett-Smith, Berg, Javier Bardem, and others. A few minor players here would make their way into Mann’s excellent but short-lived CBS drama, Robbery Homicide Division, a show that employed this film’s aesthetic. That aesthetic is an intrinsic part of Collateral, bringing a cinematic reality to the story’s tension. Paramount has re-released the same 4K content previously available with a new Steelbook packaging for the film’s 20^th anniversary. The new packaging replicates the previous cover almost exactly, so the design may not be alluring for previous owners, but if having that cold steel box sitting on your shelves is, then it might be for you.