Since it was announced this month that Michael Mann's 2004 film, Collateral, was coming out in Blu-ray Disc on March 30th, I thought that I'd resurrect (and update) an old review of it I wrote 5 years ago. It also seemed nice timing since the events in the film occur over one January night in L.A. BTW, I happen to really hate Paramount's bad Photoshop re-do for the BD's cover art (see below after the break). What were they thinking!.
When a master of any particular genre returns to it, it's usually to the satisfaction of the fans of that maestro or the genre. Thankfully, such is the case here with the 2004 film, Collateral. With director Michael Mann returning to Los Angeles with another crime thriller, using a fine script by writer Stuart Beattie, it's the fans of both the director and the genre who reap the benefits. As well, Mann-aficionados will appreciate him coming back to this familiar tuft without attempting what is now the movie studios' brain dead pastime: re-making successful original work. Luckily, this is not a regurgitation of his great 1995 ensemble saga, Heat. Collateral brings a more intimate, confrontational drama to bare, played out across the nocturnal expanse of ethnically diverse L.A. Whereas Heat had two groups, the criminals and the police, directly facing off. Here, law enforcement is on the sidelines... always a step behind and waiting to pick up the pieces of this two man conflict. And when one sharp street detective starts putting the puzzle together, the director unleashes one surprising masterstroke scene that quickly tells the audience he's not going to repeat himself.
When a master of any particular genre returns to it, it's usually to the satisfaction of the fans of that maestro or the genre. Thankfully, such is the case here with the 2004 film, Collateral. With director Michael Mann returning to Los Angeles with another crime thriller, using a fine script by writer Stuart Beattie, it's the fans of both the director and the genre who reap the benefits. As well, Mann-aficionados will appreciate him coming back to this familiar tuft without attempting what is now the movie studios' brain dead pastime: re-making successful original work. Luckily, this is not a regurgitation of his great 1995 ensemble saga, Heat. Collateral brings a more intimate, confrontational drama to bare, played out across the nocturnal expanse of ethnically diverse L.A. Whereas Heat had two groups, the criminals and the police, directly facing off. Here, law enforcement is on the sidelines... always a step behind and waiting to pick up the pieces of this two man conflict. And when one sharp street detective starts putting the puzzle together, the director unleashes one surprising masterstroke scene that quickly tells the audience he's not going to repeat himself.
The rest of this post has been updated and moved over to my current blog, found here.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=01943457-8834-8737-8e2b-efe8523885e3)
