Collateral

Question: In the club scene where the Oakenfold track is playing...there are some either movies or music videos being played in the background. Does anyone know what they are?

Question: I noticed from the previews that this movie looks very different. What is it? Is it a digital camera that has been used? Or no lighting effects used? The movie really has a "behind the scene" feel.

Kirill Ostapenko

Chosen answer: It was shot with a digital camera. IMDB is a great place to answer questions like this. Go to *Technical Specifications* in the *Other Info* section of the menu on the left hand side of the screen. In an interview in American Cinematographer, Michael Mann said that as far as he was aware, this was one of the first movies to attempt to make a "look" out of digital video rather than trying to make Digital Video look like film. This approach meant the movie could be shot in the low-light scenes of urban desolation Mann wanted - because Digital reacts much better to low light than film. The approximately 20% of the picture that was shot on film was mostly, according to Mann, the portion set in the "Fever" nightclub - because this is the scene with the brightest lighting states, a condition in which Digital Video does not perform as well.

J I Cohen

Answer: The coyote may be a metaphor for Vincent's life. A lone predator lost in a world that doesn't understand him.

Answer: In many Native American cultures, seeing a coyote cross the road ahead of you means bad luck. So I think he knows everything is going to go south.

Question: In the beginning of the movie, just prior to Vince's introduction to Max, what was Vincent doing in Annie's office building? He actually passes Annie (his 5th target) on the up/down escalators. Why not just kill her first?

Answer: He was likely scoping out the building and determining where specifically Annie worked. He couldn't just kill her in public with people around. He had a systematic plan on how and when each victim would be killed.

raywest

Answer: Plus it sets up the 5th victim surprise.

Question: What kind of gun does Vincent use on his first two targets? There are no gunshots heard before the guy falls on Max's taxi. Did he use the Ruger MK II used later on in the Jazz Club?

Answer: Per IMFDB, he uses a Heckler and Koch USP in .45 caliber.

Invader_Gir

Question: What is the song playing after Jamie Foxx stops for the coyote to cross the street?

Answer: "Shadow on the Sun" by Audioslave.

Answer: There doesn't seem to be any reason as for Statham's cameo, however one theory comes to mind. A number of years before Statham started starring in Hollywood films, he made his break in the hit low budget "Lock, Stock and two Smoking Barrels". Apparently Tom Cruise was one of the major Hollywood people who loved the film and was keen to do an American remake of the film. Possibly he wanted to try and work with him and the cameo was a perfect opportunity. Playing a "Transporter" of sorts would seem an apt role.

Lummie

Question: What was the knife that Cruise used in the cab to cut Max loose and later in the club fight?

Answer: It is a Sebenza made by Chris Reeve.

Question: Max rambles a bit sometimes. But why does he say "I'm collateral anyway" in the scene after Vincent shot the Jazz player?

Answer: By this point, he's pretty much figured out that Vincent's going to kill him at the end of the night - given the lengths that Vincent goes to to prevent people from seeing his face, he's hardly going to leave somebody who could easily identify him alive. The term 'collateral damage' is used to describe individuals who are killed as the result of targeting somebody else - like a civilian standing near a military target who's killed by a bomb aiming at that target. Max isn't the target of Vincent's hits, but he knows that he'll end up dead anyway.

Tailkinker

Can I just say it took me ten times watching this to catch that.

Also the name refers to the fact Vincent was going to use Max to to blame the murders on him no matter what, if the night failed and he didn't kill his targets he'd suicide Vincent and blame it on him, risk management, protecting his identity even from his employers since a dead killer is "clean" in terms of the law investigating it. Kinda like the job was a loan, and Max was a house, if he lost the job he'd forfeit Max as a contingency. Basically Max was always going to be his "Collateral" if he failed in his killings or succeeded, Collateral Damage if he succeeds, Employment Collateral if he failed, and if Detective Fanning showed up 5 minutes earlier or if the body didn't fall out the window, the whole movie wouldn't have happened as it did since the witnesses would have been locked down, and he'd end up suicide an unsuspecting Max in an alleyway somewhere upon failure. I love the title, it's so provocative, the meanings behind it for Max, Vincent, and the story.

Question: When Max meets Felix pretending to be Vincent, does Felix not tells one of his guys to follow him and to kill him if he doesn't get the job done? What ever happened to him?

Paul Ingram

Chosen answer: Yes the dudes from El Rodeo follow Max to Fever nightclub and they watch if he'll execute Peter Lin, so when Max and Vincent get to the nightclub and the shitstorm happens, they even try to kill Max but Vincent saves his life. There's a whole lot going on since the Feds are also there, Lin's people along with Felix's vatos.

Question: I forget his name, but he's the cop that rescues Max at Fever, and Vincent shoots him. I'm just wondering does he die? It shows him putting on bullet proof vest and it shows he gets shot in the chest so I'm not sure.

Answer: Vincent's standard shooting pattern is established as two in the chest, followed by a head shot. We see Fanning get hit twice in the chest, then, as the camera cuts to shot Vincent, he fires a third shot, presumably into Fanning's head, killing him.

Tailkinker

Question: What is the name of the song in the night club?

Answer: "Ready Steady Go", by Paul Oakenfold.

Answer: 'Ready steady go' by Paul Oakenfold. The original has english lyrics but the one in Collateral is the Korean lyrics version.

Question: In the scene where Vincent chases Max onto the subway, it appears they don't get on the same train. Am I missing something?

Answer: They board the same train. The whole deal with the two trains is just to keep the suspense going and keep the viewer guessing whether Vincent chooses the right train or not.

Andreas[DK]

Question: When Lenny calls the first time, Vincent looks at Annie's business card in the mirror and gives Max a look. Does this imply that Vincent knows that this is his last target? His conversation with Max about whether or not he should call Annie suggests otherwise, but I was curious.

Brad

Chosen answer: Vincent already knows that Annie is one of the targets on his "hit list." He was probably just surprised that Max had her business card.

raywest

Question: I was wondering what the name of the song is that plays as Max and Vincent drive off after the first killing. It plays through for a while, until the cop calls for backup.

Answer: You mean the one where Fanning is looking for Ramon in his apartment? It's called "Rollin' Crumblin'" by Tom Rothrock.

Question: When Max is pulled over by the cops because of the broken windshield and blood on his taxi, they immediately demand for him to open the trunk, which has the dead victim inside, and then to impound the taxi. When they receive a distress call on the radio, they let Max and Vincent go, feeling that it is more serious. Would this happen in reality?

Answer: It's quite possible it could happen. Max had told them that he had hit a deer, which explained the blood and broken windshield. The police did not suspect a taxi driver with a passenger in the car of any wrongdoing. Their concern was regarding the safety of the vehicle. When they got the emergency call on their police radio that became a more urgent priority than a damaged car, and Max was then instructed to get his cab off the road as quickly as possible. It's unclear why the cops wanted the trunk opened, but it really seems this was only to add to the scene's overall suspense before it is quickly diffused. It's a rather cliched plot device.

raywest

Answer: The cop says they need to do an itinerary, no doubt for legal reasons in case the cab driver claimed that they had stolen something after it had been impounded.

Question: After Vincent shoots Max's muggers and returns to the taxi, he asks Max where the button is. What button is he referring to?

Answer: The button he is referring to is the "hazards" light button. Max triggered it when trying to draw attention to himself in the cab.

I figure when he shot those goons he might've put them in the trunk, because as far as I know chances of a button for opening the trunk is way higher under the dash than of a hazard light button.

Question: What does Tom Cruise's character say to the owner of the jazz place after he shoots him in the head ?

Answer: It's been a while since I saw the movie, but he said something along the lines of: "[Miles Davis] dropped out of Julliard after six months and found a bar on 57th street, where he met Charlie Parker, who mentored him for three years."

Answer: Dropped out of Julliard after less than a year and tracked down Charlie Parker on 52nd St, who mentored him for the next three years.

Question: Annie's business card is attached to the visor of Max's cab - then somehow, it appears in his pocket when Max needs to warn her about being a target. How/when did it get there?

Answer: At some point, he took the card from the visor and put it in his pocket. Just because it's not shown on camera does not mean he didn't have the time or opportunity to do that.

raywest

Question: Daniel mentioned "You know the folks in Cartagena and..." somewhere else? I have located Cartagena in the northern region of Colombia, SA What was the second location Daniel referenced? It sounded like "cuta cahn".

barbL

Chosen answer: Culiacán, in northwestern Mexico.

Sierra1

Other mistake: In the scene where they're loading Tom Cruise's first victim into the trunk, as Max lifts at the arms you can see the "dead" guy holding onto Max's forearms. (00:20:55)

More mistakes in Collateral

Vincent: Max, I do this for a living.

More quotes from Collateral

Trivia: The film was almost entirely shot in high definition. Director Michael Mann states he did this to capture the night scenes more vividly.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: The number of movies shot in less-than-HD could be counted on one hand.

I believe it refers to the fact that Collateral is considered to be the first major movie to use a digital camera, not the traditional film support.

Sammo

More trivia for Collateral

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.