Tom Cruise as a bad guy? I guess he had to try it eventually and although he is still playing just a variation on his normal persona, he does convey a sense of menace in his portrayal of contract killer Vincent in director Michael Mann's suspense thriller, "Collateral". It's intriguing to see a big film star take on such a dark role and Tom Cruise slips in to it quite well. He is amicably assisted by co-star Jamie Foxx as the shy taxi driver Max who unwittingly takes Vincent as one of his passengers, only to realise he will be used as a courier while Vincent goes around executing his targets. It's a solid, entertaining thriller, but it is let down by some dreadful visuals, but then again, you either love Mann's style of shooting or you don't. I sit with the latter. Bumpy hand-helds, under-lit images, extreme close-ups and odd angles made me ask myself, why am I watching an extreme close-up of Tom Cruise's right ear (amongst others...)? It's an odd dynamic, especially as Mann is utilising a great script and elicits such strong performances from the lead actors.

The film starts off simply by Vincent bumping in to his contact at Los Angeles Airport, picking up a brief case which contains the information pertaining to the executions he has been hired for. He walks out of the airport and catches a cab. Max doesn't pay attention at first when Vincent hails him; Vincent goes to the next cab but Max waves him back, saying he'll take him. The notion of random chance is played wonderfully in this scene; if Max hadn't called him back, he wouldn't have ended up having a nightmare of a night with Vincent. There's a rapport that builds between the men when Vincent offers Max six hundred dollars to be his personal cab driver for the night. Max agrees, not seeing the harm. It all goes south when at Vincent's first stop a body lands on Max's cab, courtesy of Vincent's handiwork. When Max realises what has happened, he tries to untangle himself from the situation but ruthless Vincent won't have a bar of it; rather than take the risk that Max will call the police, he forces him to keep driving him to each destination on his list so he can make his round of executions. Eventually Max overcomes his shyness and stands up to Vincent, eventually saving the life of Vincent's final target and killing Vincent in the end.

All of the scenes with Vincent are cold-blooded and clinical. When two men tie up Foxx to his steering wheel, steel Vincent's brief case and Max's wallet, Vincent comes out just in time to confront the men. He appears to surrender, especially as one of the men waves a gun at him. Then suddenly, in less than a second, Vincent guns down the two men and takes back his brief case and Max's wallet. And in a brutal turn, when one of the men tries to stand, Vincent shoots him again in the head as he walks off. Then there's the scene in the nightclub where Vincent calmly makes his way towards his target, quickly killing off security men who try to stop him. Vincent eventually gets his man, shooting him in the head and upper body before retreating as if nothing had ever happened. In all of the scenes there's a detached, clinical and almost robotic quality to Vincent that makes him extremely sinister, yet very compelling to watch. He's a predator who makes his more cleanly and efficiently.

Jamie Foxx is great as Max. He conveys the every-day Joe quality very well, especially when he's pushed in to such an extraordinary situation with Vincent. Foxx's performance is quite understated for the most part, even when he finally does stand up to Vincent towards the last quarter of the film. In many ways he is the equal of Cruise on screen, and has at the very least as much screen presence as the big movie star.

As I mentioned from the outset, Michael Mann's visual style leaves a lot to be desired. Maybe he's trying to be different, but to be honest I found a lot of the images to be quite poorly produced. He shoots with a high definition video camera for much of the night sequences - nothing wrong with hi-def but the lack of lighting makes it look akin to a home movie. There's some bizarre angles on things; I already mentioned the extreme close-up of Cruise's ear in one of the opening shots, but there are plenty of others, such as the bumpy camera work that gives you a headache, some bizarre focus pulls with the subject in the foreground out of focus with the background in focus. But perhaps my favourite is the final shot when Vincent drops on one of the seats on the train, dead. It's framed very poorly, doesn't look balanced, or even straight. Again, maybe he's going for something different to the norm but maybe there's a reason why so many directors follow a certain form - because it works maybe?

"Collateral" is an engaging thriller that will grab your interest throughout with its story and characters, but is let down by some dreadful visuals.