COLLATERAL

REVIEWED BY SHANNON H.

Our rating: 3 out of 5

Because of: violence, language, thematic elements

Rated:

Everyone -- or almost everyone -- remembers the film from the 1970s titled Taxi Driver. Then there were those taxi cab confessional documentaries on pay-per-view channels. And who could forget the TV show Taxi featuring the late Andy Kaufman, Tony Danza, Danny DeVito, etc. The taxicab is definitely part of the American consciousness in relation to popular culture. Usually, people associate taxis with New York City. Before Michael Mann signed on to direct the film, it was supposed to take place there. However, the film was moved to Los Angeles where traffic congestion is just as bad.

Max (Jamie Foxx) is your every day Average Joe trying to make an honest living. He's been driving a cab for 12 years part-time on the side to pay his bills. Whenever he gets tired of his job, he looks at a picture postcard of an island in his cab for five minutes and he feels better. On one particular night he picks up Annie (Jada Pinkett Smith) a lawyer assigned to a case. The two of them chat, share stories, and part ways, not before Max gives Annie his picture of the island and Annie gives Max her business card. While waiting at the airport for potential customers, Max daydreams for a bit until he picks up a rider named Vincent (Tom Cruise). 

Vincent is kind and friendly at first, offering Max $300 to $600 for the night if he made a few stops for him. Max agrees and stops at an apartment complex. Before he knows it, a man falls from the top story onto Max's cab. It turns out that Vincent is a hired hit man and it was he who shot the man that fell out of his apartment. Vincent then forces Max to drive him to all of his "stops" so he can kill those on his hit list (a fancy laptop he carries with him). The kicker is that all of Vincent's victims are witnesses in a court case against one of his crime bosses. And he has to take the life of one more victim...

I don't know if the film has any redemptive value or not. On one hand, Vincent eventually pays the price for his horrible deeds. On the other, Max doesn't manage to flag down help from the police during the times that he had the chance (most of the time he was forced to stay put by gunpoint). There's no sex at all in the film, not even one shot of nudity. Vincent and Max go to a nightclub where a bunch of young people dance suggestively but that's about it. There is a great deal of vulgarity in the film and both Vincent and Max take the Lord's name in vain. I lost count of the profanity in the movie. There were several words that start with "s," "d," and "h" as well as several f-bombs. The violence is heavy but it's more of the violence you'd see in any Lord of the Rings film. 

We all know that "Thou shall not murder" is one of the Ten Commandments and apparently Vincent has broken it several times. During the entire film he refuses to admit guilt or apologize for the deaths of the innocent people he's murdered. Characters constantly use profanity and the Lord's name in vain, which are also sins. The Bible tells us to keep our language clean. I only liked the film for the way it was made, not the content. In fact I came out of the theater shaking like a leaf because it frightened me. I believe it is best that Christians avoid this film. It is pretty much a film version of the Grand Theft Auto video game and it doesn't really have any redeeming value.

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