Collateral: Tom Cruise’s Vincent Is Still Haunting 20 Years Later By We don’t typically associate Tom Cruise with villainy. For much of , the man, the myth, the legend has enjoyed heroic roles in films such as Top Gun, Mission: Impossible, and War of the Worlds while occasionally venturing into morally ambiguous territory in Eyes Wide Shut, Born On the Fourth of July, Magnolia, and Minority Report. Even Lestat, his violent, blood-sucking vampire in Neil Jordan’s Interview with the Vampire, is more of an antihero than an outright villain, while Les Grossman, the profanity-spewing, balding producer of Tropic Thunder, is merely a corporate stooge in dire need of a moral compass.
Indeed, it took Cruise over two decades to dive head-first into the other side of the pond, resulting in perhaps his most nuanced work to date. Following a string of box office successes, Cruise teamed with legendary director Michael Mann for the thriller , in which he portrayed Vincent, a ruthless hitman who forces Jamie Foxx’s lowly cabbie, Max, to drive him to various “appointments” around Los Angeles. Adorned in a slick suit and sporting steely grey hair, Vincent is the epitome of evil.
He wanders the Earth searching for victims, kills without hesitation, and conceals his shame behind a flimsy philosophy drenched in faux nihilism. He’s basically the Devil, rising from the netherworld to claim his victims, relishing every opportunity to display his incredible power. Cruise disappears int.