This Michael-Mann directed film is another underrated movie which I enjoyed immensely. I first watched it a long time ago during a midnight showing as a uni undergraduate without knowing much about it, and I had recently watched it again. It still holds up.
First of all what I like about this movie is the fact that Tom Cruise plays the movie's antagonist, his white hair and another fact which I can't divulge here because it's a spoiler. Tom Cruise almost always plays the good guy in his movies, so it was a nice change.
Jamie Foxx also isn't as suave as he usually is in most of his movies, playing a taxi driver in this. His other dweebish role that I've seen is in the Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), as Electro.
The film tells the story of the taxi driver, Max who is forced on gunpoint to drive around an assassin, Vincent (Cruise) who has been hired to assassinate five witnesses of a court case on the same night. Also starring in this movie are Jada Pinket Smith as an attorney and Mark Ruffalo as a detective.
Trailer for the movie
The fact that the movie takes place throughout the duration of one night, and in Max's taxi makes it a quite intimate experience. And the dialogue between the two provides the chemistry, in a not-so-typical way. I mean you wouldn't expect a guy who's held at gunpoint to warm up to his kidnapper, would you?
The GOOD: A satisfyingly intimate experience that interspersed by restrained and not unnecessary action scenes.
The BAD: The soundtrack was a little underwhelming. Mann eschews typical orchestration, but some songs used as accompaniment were a little jarring, especially one song from the rock band Audioslave. The same problem would surface again in Mann's next movie, his movie adaptation of the same TV show which he had produced in the 80's; Miami Vice (2006).
My VERDICT: this movie is a 7/10
TRIVIA: Tom Cruise would play against typecast again in his cameo role as a movie producer, complete with a fat-suit and a bald cap, in Tropic Thunder (2008). Tell me this isn't the most hilarious thing you've seen today.
