At the end of the film Vincent is shown left on the train, like no one cares, his appearance has changed dramatically from the opening scene; he is now being defeated, beaten by the Jamie Foxx’s character Max. The character is a cold hearted, killing machine killer and needed to be killed.
Genre is a way of describing a type or category of film. ‘Collateral’ could be called a suspense thriller because it tells the story of a cold hearted assassin out to kill all the people, he is contracted to execute.
In the book Films in the Shadow of Alfred Hitchcock, Charles Derry identify six major thriller sub-types. These include thriller of murderous passions. This sub-type would include a film like ‘Phone Booth’; where the villain intends to murder the character played by Colin Farrell, who treated his wife as unimportant because he was cheating on her with his girlfriend.
‘Collateral’ could be said to be a thriller of moral confrontation because at the end, or near the end of the film Vincent has changed from being an untouchable killer to a defeated and worthless man when he is defeated by Jamie Foxx (Max). It could also be called an innocent on the run thriller because at one point if the film the police believes that Max is the assassin, because the CCTV captures Max entering the club with a gun.
In the final line of the film Vincent says to max as he is dying; “a guy gets on the MTA here in L.A and dies….You think anybody will notice”. This line might leave the audience feeling sorry for him and the idea that he has had to live his life like that. The character of Vincent has been presented to the audience as a ruthless killer focused on assassinating the people he needs to. Vincent is an unusual representation of an assassin in this genre of the film because Tom cruise’s performance asks for sympathy especially at the end of the film.
Genre is a way of describing a type or category of film. Collateral could be called a suspense thriller because there is a cold hearted assassin out ready to kill all the people he needs to.
In the suspense thriller: films in the shadow of Alfred Hitchcock, Charles Derry identify six major thriller sub-types. These include thriller of murderous passions. This sub-type would describe a film like Phone Booth, because you should not treat everyone like rubbish because you’re a business man. The villain intends to murder the character played by Colin Farrell who treated his wife like a non-important woman because he was cheating her with his girlfriend.
Collateral could be said to be a thriller of moral confrontation because at the end or near the end of the film Vincent has changed from being an untouchable killer to a defeated and worthless man when he is defeated by Jamie Foxx (Max). It could also be called an innocent on the run thriller because at one point if the film the police believes that Max is the assassin, because the CCTV captures Max entering the club with a gun.
In the final line of the film Vincent says to max as he is dying; “a guy gets on the MTA here in L.A and dies….You think anybody will notice”. This line might leave the audience feeling sorry for him and the idea that he has had to live his life like that. The character of Vincent has been presented to the audience as a ruthless killer focused on assassinating the people he needs to. Vincent is an unusual representation of an assassin in this genre of the film because Tom cruise’s performance asks for sympathy especially at the end of the film.
By
Jermaine Carthy
