Neo-noir perfection

Crisp, neo-noir perfection, masquerading as a summer action flick but with a dark and existential core. Tom Cruise plays against his type as an assassin, a lone grey fox named Vincent sent to make five hits in a single night using any means necessary... and cab driver Max (Jamie Foxx) happens to be that means. Deftly directed by Michael Mann--who knows every nook and cranny in L.A. and the perfect angle to shoot them--he is able to breathe Stuart Beattie's poetic screenplay to life, keeping Foxx incredibly nuanced and bringing Cruise to his cold and empty peak.

"Someday my dream will come. One night you'll wake up and you'll discover it never happened. It's all turned around on you and it never will. Suddenly you are old, didn't happen and it never will, 'cause you were never going to do it anyway."

There is a lot to like about this film, but what really catches my eye is the cool lighting colors and the crisp HD film style. It makes the whole experience rather dreamlike yet jarringly vivid, and it helps elevate those action moments--you actually believe that characters can be hit by bullets, and that there are real consequences to where these bullets end up. After a long night, the sun starts to rise. The sky has an eerie glow, shadows seem lighter, and Vincent wonders aloud: "Think anyone will notice?"

10/10