View Full Version : Collateral
Pretty decent flick, actually (minus the cheesy ending). Cruise has done a couple good ones lately--this is starting to worry me. :) There were very good gun handling skills displayed by Cruise's character in Collateral. Watching the extras, I found out why. Michael Mann (the director) hired the same weapons/tactics trainer he used in "Heat", Mick Gould, a former SAS guy. He did it right, training the actors using live rounds, not blanks.
alphamale
12-20-2004, 22:43
Pretty decent flick, actually (minus the cheesy ending). Cruise has done a couple good ones lately--this is starting to worry me. :) Cheesy ending - but decent revenge scene! Not as good as the duct tape scene of Man on Fire, but still!
Cruise has done a couple good ones lately--this is starting to worry me. :) Before seeing it I thought Tom Cruise was too pretty-boy to pull off a role like that, but agreed - very well-done.
There were very good gun handling skills displayed by Cruise's character in Collateral.First one was the most impressive - in the alleyway with the guy who took his briefcase from the taxi and the other guy.
FrontSight
I saw this movie last night and I agree, the gunhandling was 110% better than standard hollywood fare.
Good shooting from retention in the alley scene, Mozambiques for the lot also...
Using a blade to to break the hold on him, acquiring the USP back and started put rounds on target.
Also shot the USP into slidelock, put 1 round in the target so he wouldnt espace, then putting a second in the chest and one to the head.
Cant remember a bad Michael Mann movie, Last Of The Mohicans, Heat and so on...
He actually seems to care that the actors look and act like they have it under control.
The series, Robbery Homicide Division that he recently put out, had the actors also training at a sheriffs range with Benellis and other issue weapons.
CommoGeek
12-21-2004, 05:56
The series, Robbery Homicide Division that he recently put out, had the actors also training at a sheriffs range with Benellis and other issue weapons.
I liked that show, but CBS didn't have it in a great time slot here in the States. To add to it Tom Sizemore elected to jack up a hooker or two (Heidi Fleiss) so his conviction on battery or whatever "happened" to coincide with the cancellation of the show.
Good flick, loved Cruise as the BG, much better than Last Samurai.
Did you guys catch the bad editing in the final scene, after the last gunfight?
Roguish Lawyer
12-26-2004, 20:18
I liked it.
stanley_white
12-26-2004, 20:25
Prior to the part when Jamie Foxx enters the western club posing as Tom Cruise's character he asks "How long have you been doing this?" Tom Cruise's reply is "Freelance? Six years."
From a character development point of view I wondered who Tom Cruise's character was doing this type of work for prior to becoming freelance? :confused:
There was a bit where they mention ex Statsi and KGB. Maybe he was working for FSB then? Dunno. Cool movie.
Achilles
12-26-2004, 21:28
Good movie.
There was a bit where they mention ex Statsi and KGB.
Yep, I think that's it. I read some reviews that mentioned Mann and Cruise intentionally left Vincent's back story out of the movie. Made him appear more like an icy killing machine.
NousDefionsDoc
12-26-2004, 22:33
I have seen some former SAS guys with the worst weapons handling skills I have ever seen on a supposedly trained individual.
Also knew one who flipped a car while doing a demo for students.
Silly question, but what's the point of flipping a car during a weapons demo?
NousDefionsDoc
12-27-2004, 00:06
It was a driving demo by an expert flown in to teach an offensive driving course. The point is, he wasn't supposed to flip it, he was supposed to be demonstrating a manuever for the students on the appropriate way to escape an ambush blockade.
But he did flip it and the class had to wait while they dragged the wreck off and got another vehicle.
There was a bit where they mention ex Statsi and KGB. Maybe he was working for FSB then? Dunno. Cool movie.
I think those agencies were just mentioned in passing.
From what i saw in the making of documentary, Mann had a story for the character from childhood, were he lived and went to school etc.
Ohhh, I get it. I thought you meant he physicaly lifted it and flipped it for a moment. A Duh Moment.
Tukka: That sounds like a good explanation to me.
Good flick, loved Cruise as the BG, much better than Last Samurai.
Did you guys catch the bad editing in the final scene, after the last gunfight?
I don't know about bad editing, but in the Asian club gunfight, the cruise character shot the weapon dry, pulled it back into his chest while watching it the whole time, and reloaded the weapon.
At the end on the train, Cruise's character shot the smith auto dry, kept his arms fully extended, and grabbed for another magazine from his belt. this leads me to believe that the person in the club shootout was a stand in.
Just my thoughts, I have been wrong before
That's the sequence I was talking about in the end on the train. Cruise ejects the empty magazine from the S&W, you hear it bounce on the floor. He reaches for a fresh mag and his hand comes up empty. The next shot is of a mag bouncing on the floor. Is this the empty S&W mag, or did he reach for a USP mag and realize he's got a different gun, so he drops the second mag. Maybe not a bad edit and I'm just confused. There was a raging debate about this scene on imdb. They were arguing about the mystery "clip."
brewmonkey
12-27-2004, 11:58
Pretty decent flick, actually (minus the cheesy ending). Cruise has done a couple good ones lately--this is starting to worry me. :) There were very good gun handling skills displayed by Cruise's character in Collateral. Watching the extras, I found out why. Michael Mann (the director) hired the same weapons/tactics trainer he used in "Heat", Mick Gould, a former SAS guy. He did it right, training the actors using live rounds, not blanks.
HBO did a first look at this movie and they showed them being trained to use the weapons.
alphamale
01-02-2005, 19:06
Pretty decent flick, actually Soundtrack is excellent too. Got it after trying to find a couple of the tracks again in the movie. Several of the tunes are just begging to be played at high decibels.
One especially by Groove Armada - Hands of time
In the movie, it was playing after the DA was trying to tell Mr. Cabbie directions for how to get there faster.
Cracked me up because when I do that in Rome, Mr. Cabbies get all prickly. They are already kinda antsy because my hotel is in the middle of a pedestrian-only area and they must travel through a maze of very narrow streets in an exact path or else they make a 5 minute mistake or risk doing something illegal. I did talk a polizia out of giving my cabbie a ticket once, even after I warned Mr. Cabbie not to do what he was about to do.
(After all, how would I know better than they !?! I've only been to that same place about 20 times and know those barely-driveable-alleys better than the streets in my neighborhood :rolleyes: )
Most of this movie is spent in a taxi, which made me think of all the time I've spent in taxis. Taxi drivers can be some pretty unique / odd / interesting people.
Here are some taxi pixels:
Pics 1-2, Cabbie watching soccer :eek: while driving from Pisa, Italy airport to Florence. Luckily, there was only 1 goal scored during the ride.
Pics 3-4, Water taxis going back and forth to the airport in Venice
Pic 5, Water taxi going from Venice to Murano, one of my favorite pics from that trip, because of the colors and the detail in the ironwork
alphamale
01-02-2005, 19:25
Pic 1-3 - Shanghai, China - a backseat ad, a license, and the cabbie enclosure
Pic 4 - Hamburg, Germany - where all taxi's are cream-colored Benz's
Pic 5 - Somewhere in Germany much further south. Note the total lack of direction symbols (north, south, ...) on Autobahn signage. You have to know the names of all towns also headed in your direction in order to take the correct highway exit to get on a different highway.
Usually it's just a 30 minute mistake if you goof.
On the day of that Pic 5, it would have been an 18 hour mistake. I remember thinking, "Gee, there are lots of cars stuck in traffic headed in the opposite direction." On Skye News that next night, I heard that that some cars were stuck in a 24 hour Autobahn traffic jam, longest ever in history, exactly there because everyone was headed to the southern mountains for skiiing at the start of the holiday, and an oil tanker went sideways back about 30 miles.
Because there is no east-west-north-south- on signs, whenever I go to Germany now, I take a suction-cup compass for the rental car dashboard. I have a perfect record for not remembering to retrieve it from the rental car before turning it back in, so I just bought 10 of them and consider them disposable.
(Or, on days like Pic 5, is there a SF Redneck Engineering way to tell direction without a compass that I should know about?)
alphamale
01-02-2005, 19:33
Pic 1 - Black Cab in Edinburgh, Scotland, that is "IMMUNE" from something.
Pic 2 - Edinburgh Black Cab that is Red
Pic 3 - London colorful line Black Cabs
Pic 4 - London cute belcap (OK, not cute in the Josh Hartnett sense, but still he was really adorable)
Pic 5 - Strange Black Cab door
OK, that's it. The important place to know which is the right cab to take (legal vs illegal ones) is in Amsterdam. Very subtle diff. I think the legal ones have "taxi" in blue along the top. Anything else, like "taxi" in black wouldn't legit.
Soundtrack is excellent too.
I was thinking about picking up the soundtrack. Thanks for the tip.
alphamale
01-02-2005, 20:51
I rarely buy soundtracks and this one is aces.
Usually I just listen to whatever music my friends tell me to listen to. I keep listening to that (currently Beck, Nick Drake, Jane's Addiction) if I like it,
till they tell me to listen to something else.
There are a couple new tones on this soundtrack that are very diff but each very enchanting.
vsvo,
First one I mentioned is my fave (Groove Armada, Hands of Time)
but also
Clexico's - Guero Canelo
Tom Rothrock's - Rollin' Crumblin'
Antonio Pinto's - Car Crash
and the orchestrals by James Newton Howard.
FrontSight
Yeah, I finally rented the movie so I could watch the froufrou extras disc (Netflix only sends the movie disc). Loved the part where they interviewed the composer and talked about scoring the music to the scenes. Were any of the tracks you listed the one played during the club scene? Although it sounds like any other techno club beat out there, it was strangely hypnotic. Maybe b/c he was stalking and going in for the kill. Anyways, will check out the tracks you noted.
BTW another guy who integrates music into his movies well is Tarantino. There was a discussion on another thread about Kill Bill. Both Vol.1 and 2, terrific music.
Brother Rat
01-13-2005, 07:51
I don't know about bad editing, but in the Asian club gunfight, the cruise character shot the weapon dry, pulled it back into his chest while watching it the whole time, and reloaded the weapon.
At the end on the train, Cruise's character shot the smith auto dry, kept his arms fully extended, and grabbed for another magazine from his belt. this leads me to believe that the person in the club shootout was a stand in.
Just my thoughts, I have been wrong before
Which way is the correct one?
It was a driving demo by an expert flown in to teach an offensive driving course. The point is, he wasn't supposed to flip it, he was supposed to be demonstrating a manuever for the students on the appropriate way to escape an ambush blockade.
But he did flip it and the class had to wait while they dragged the wreck off and got another vehicle.
Was it a car or SUV?
Which way is the correct one?
There is no "Right" way. Or "Wrong" way for that matter. If you are holding your spare mag in your mouth and changing mags with your left foot, and can pull it off faster than the other guy, you win. Least that's how I look at it. I have taken all of the different Ideas I have been exposed to, dug through them, and culled the ones that didn't work FOR ME. Because I don't care what Jeff Cooper, or Fairbain and Sykes do; if I can't do it as well as I can do something else, I will go with something else.
Just my .02, YMMV
this one is aces.
Finally got the soundtrack. You're right FS, it's very good.
alphamale
01-14-2005, 19:22
vsvo,
Play that tune by Tom Rothrock (Rollin' Crumblin') at HIGH decibels.
Am sure that's the only way it should be played.
FrontSight
Archangel
01-21-2005, 22:56
Not as good as the duct tape scene of Man on FireSpeaking of MOF, Great Movie! I think it would have ended better if he had planted a bomb on (or in) himself & set the watch on a timer. :D
Good shooting from retention in the alley scene
Anyone post this yet?
http://www.the-roberts.info/gallery/albums/GTFriends/collateral.mpg
Speaking of MOF, Great Movie!
Yeah, I liked MOF too. I never saw the original, but it seemed like the remake was barely in theaters.