Anya and I went and saw "Collateral" last night. It was a fantastic movie. I LOVED it. There have been few movies I've seen this year that I've loved, but this is easily one of them. Right now, it's in my top five of the year.

Tom Cruise always shines in roles when you don't really know that it's Tom Cruise. His hitman isn't Jerry Maguire or Maverick. It wasn't Tom Cruise playing Tom Cruise. This was Tom Cruise totally getting into a character and owning it.

Jamie Fox really shines the brightest here. He did such a fantastic job, that if I'm an awards judge, he has to rank up there with anything else that's come out this year.

The scenes where Jamie Fox and Tom Cruise would be talking in the taxi cab were quite spectacular. I LOVE intelligent dialogue being delivered by two great actors. I don't care what the context or the scene is, when it's well written and delivered great, I'm sold.

The movie did get kind of bogged down as director Michael Mann increasingly started adding more characters. But luckily, things were all brought back to the core element of Jamie Fox and Tom Cruise interacting in a Los Angeles taxicab.

Michael Mann is one of my favorite directors. I love his work in "The Insider" and "Heat" a lot. I think that he ups his game with this movie though. He did some really great things with his camera work.

I don't want to say that it's a must see. Due to it's hard core violence and subject matter, it's a hard movie to digest for some people. But I loved this movie.

matt out