"I read about this guy who gets on the MTA here, dies. Six hours he's riding the subway before anybody notices his corpse doing laps around L.A., people on and off sitting next to him. Nobody notices. "

Can I just be honest? I don't really know a lot about film. I may talk big about the depths of thematic development or the meaning of cinematic style, but like the rest of us I'm just making it up as I go. But if there's one thing I know for sure about movies it's that I prefer film to digital. I think digital filmmaking is good for little more than lowering costs. I love film stock. Sure, some of that comes…

One element I haven't seen much in the praise of this film is actually how funny it is. There is a subtle but direct layer of levity, which is mostly used to ease the very palpable tension. I saw it twice in theaters and both times one particular line got a hearty response from the audience. Nearly all of it surrounds the chemistry of it's two leads, and the individual choices they made regarding their characters.

Tom Cruise (in arguably what's a career-best turn) as Vincent sometimes uses very flat sarcasm sometimes to get his point across ("I shot him, the bullets and the fall killed him"), that in no way lessens the amount of menace he puts across in…

A romance of sorts observing and never interfering with a study of American landscape (or cityscape, to be precise) jumbled up in an action film, setpieces intersect with constant development of humans and their emotions, it's only an action film to force the hand of introspective beauty, Mann captures the city from above because the screenplay tackles it from below and because the actors tackle it head-on, this film feels alive, and populated. Secondary stories weave into the film and out again, occasionally impacting the overall arc, subtext abounds in how Mann utilizes sources of light and he pulls off genuine tension multiple times, something very few filmmakers can manage.

Of all the impressive things about Collateral, perhaps most amazing…

One, if not the only Michael Mann film that almost entirely relies on good performances. Not to say that the story is poor, it's actually very good. But the script requires some convincing performances. With Tom Cruise as the bad guy and a then "not" academy award winner Jamie Foxx in the lead, it did not look good, but Michael Mann makes it work.

Colatteral is a thrill ride from start to finish on a first watch. Knowing the outcome, the film was not near as compelling on a second watch, unlike Heat which became a much more intense experience on a re-watch. Having lived in Los Angeles though, made me look at the film in a different way. It…