When Tom Cruise appeared at the closing ceremony of the Paris Olympics, there was no line separating his persona from the character he portrays in Mission Impossible. His brand image is built around the identity of the action hero, but his best on-screen performances are the ones where he abandons that role in favor of darker characters.

Although his face is associated with Ethan Hunt or Maverick from Top Gun, his most memorable works have been those he has signed with prestigious filmmakers like Paul Thomas Anderson in Magnolia or Michael Mann in Collateral, a noir thriller that celebrates its 20th anniversary this year and which we recommend as one of the movies of the week on streaming. 

In Collateral, Cruise plays Vincent, a villain, a hitman who hires Max, a taxi driver (Jamie Foxx), for one night to drive him around Los Angeles while he carries out a series of meetings to close a real estate deal.

'Collateral'

While Max waits at the first stop, a corpse falls onto his car, revealing Vincent's true nature of work, who forces his taxi driver to hide the body in the trunk and keep driving. One night, five stops, five hits, and one getaway. Together, with their lives in constant collision, neither of them will ever be the same. 

Javier Bardem in 'Collateral'

*This article has been automatically translated using artificial intelligence