The good news first: Tom
Cruise is entirely credible as a bad guy. He’s
a polished villain in a perfect Armani suit with a tie and shirt that move from
one shade of messy to another as he goes about his job of killing witnesses in
what is about to be a high profile court case.
Had he been disheveled, he would have been Tom Cruise in costume. This way he is eerie – Immaculate Tom with evil instincts
inside that beautiful head, wrapped in the image of a businessman.
With the skills of a deft killer and the moves of a perfectionist, he
surprises us repeatedly. Even covered in blood he is in charge. The heart of his character is freezing cold.
More good news: The movie
begins beautifully with Annie (Jada Pinkett Smith) as the passenger in Max’s
(Jamie Foxx) cab. A cab
driver and a lawyer discover their mutual pleasure in listening quietly to
beautiful radio music as they drive. By
the end of the ride we know these two are good people will see each other again.
It’s a lovely beginning.
After a body falls from a few stories up onto the roof of Max’s cab;
the beautiful soft music changes to a nervous, edgy beat that never goes away.
Our peace is over. Vincent (Tom Cruise) becomes Max’s passenger, ordering him
to chauffeur him for his own night’s work, which happens to be five quick
stops to kill five people. It’s
here that things begin to go astray.
We are never quite sure who Vincent’s victims are or why they are being
shot. One seems to be involved with
drugs, another is a trumpet player, and none of them become known to us in any
way that might make us interested in them.
Knowing they are witnesses doesn’t help.
A string of people dies from Vincent’s bullets without our ever really
understanding the puzzle. As our
attention drifts away from the plot, our idle minds see gaping holes.
For one thing, the setting is busy Los Angeles.
But in this movie, nighttime L.A. is deserted. You may never have seen such deserted streets or buildings
– until, that is, someone needs to be shot, and then we are in a crowded dance
or jazz club. The final chase
through the subway is surreal – gleaming silver and white surfaces without
people. Max could escape many
times, but doesn’t; Many people could pick up the phone to dial 911, but
don’t.
So it’s not much of a movie – except for some very good acting.
Tom Cruise manages to make precision horrifying without saying a word;
his cold, quick, killer is chilling from beginning to end.
Jamie Foxx’s Max is a human calculator of times and distances, a
dreamer who calms himself down with a picture of an island behind the visor of
his cab, a good man whose most endearing quality may be that he doesn’t even
know how to release the safety on a pistol.
Copyright (c) Illusion