Movies Which movie is better: Collateral or Training Day

[Frank_Drebin]

That's Mann in a nutshell. He's one of the few directors who is really hard to appreciate on the first view, but will build appreciation in nearly all viewers with with each repeated viewing.

I don't like everything he does, but there's almost always a depth that hides in plain sight.

that's how it was for me with the insider. from this is boring to this one of the most underrated movies of all time.

i rewatched it a few years ago and sadly it's not the same for some reason. the movie was pre 9/11 and i guess big tobacco was a huge issue back then and the justice system actually held businesses accountable. maybe it's not as powerful because everything is openly corrupt now and nothing ever happens.

 

[Highway99]

Started watching a crappy Russian link of Collateral with Arabic subtitles just to see if it was too blue, ended up finishing the whole damn thing.

The movie actually shares a similar feel to this youtube channel from an LA nightcrawler I've seen that follows a police scanner and drives around at night to different accidents. In that way the movie feels quite authentic and captures the late night LA vibe.

 

[TJ Dillashank]

I need to re watch both. Cruise is excellent in everything he does but Training day was the only movie I've seen with Denzel that I actually liked his performance.

 

[Elvis.]

Both good , but training day by tko

 

[VinceArch]

I need to re watch both. Cruise is excellent in everything he does but Training day was the only movie I've seen with Denzel that I actually liked his performance.

Damn, dude. Glory, Malcolm X, Remember the Titans are all good roles he's done. To each his own.

 

[roman510]

Training day by a mile

Collateral is just another tarded action movie

 

[Bullitt68]

Collateral would have been better if the last hit wasn't on Jada and Tom cruise lives with Jamie Foxx getting charged with the crimes. The film ends with Jamie using his phone call to call Jada because she gives him her business card saying if you ever need a lawyer call me.

Would have been way way better

Man, first the ending of Kill Bill and now Collateral. You and I never seem to see eye-to-eye on denouements. It's part of the genius of the film that it ends where it began. For starters, it's just a great magic trick: We see where Foxx picks Cruise up at the beginning, we even see Cruise and Pinkett Smith pass each other on the escalators, yet it still hits like a punch in the gut when we realize where Cruise is heading at the end. That's just damn fine filmmaking. But it's also crucial that Foxx is required quite literally to man up for the woman of his dreams. He was too scared to call her -- is he going to be too scared to save her? It's the fucking hero's journey writ large. He has undergone quite the spiritual transformation through his night with Cruise, he has gained confidence he'd never had before and shown courage he didn't know he had, but now he's faced with the ultimate test for the ultimate reward, and the only way to be victorious is to vanquish the ultimate villain. It's mythologically epic, man, and it HAS to finish where it started (just like in Heat it HAS to finish with De Niro spotting the heat in Pacino coming around the corner).

I also regularly screen this film for students in one of my classes and I always get oohs-and-aahs from them when we break down that train sequence and I show them Cruise's bullet pattern in the train doors, Mann's brilliant little nugget showing how rigid Cruise is (despite his bullshit about Darwin, the I Ching, adapting, rolling with it, and playing jazz) and how it's the fact that he can't/won't change that brings him down, whereas Foxx can and does change, actually embodying the jazz-playing tenets Cruise only talks, and therefore he survives their head-to-head.



And this is barely scratching the surface of that dense script masterfully played out by Cruise and Foxx and expertly filmed by Mann. The deeper you go into Collateral, the clearer it becomes how far out in front of Training Day it is.

Collateral is just another tarded action movie

I literally tell my students on Collateral week that it's the perfect film to give the lie to the "mindless action movie" stereotype and to show that there's no such thing as a mindless movie, only mindless viewers. Instead of calling the movie tarded, consider that you may just be watching it like a tard. Give it a serious rewatch and see if it doesn't have a hell of a lot more going on.

 

[Madmick]

maybe it's realistic that tom cruise would get away temporarily and foxx would get the blame, but wouldn't that also be a downer? weird character arc for sure. goes from being an underachiever to developing courage and confidence then to rock bottom who's charged and loses his cab license?

foxx would also get cleared when they look at the club's security footage. now that you think about it, these days cruise would get caught real quick, so how do hits even work these days?

Outside of government agents and mob enforcers "hit men" have largely never been more than a Hollywood fantasy.

 

[liner]

I really like both alot. Collateral has some amazing gun fights. I don‘t think anyone has mentioned the beautiful Eva Mendes. Im mean cmon guys shes naked. Not that her nakedness puts training day over collateral on its own but Jesus its gotta count for something
Ill go training day

 

[revoltub]

Man, first the ending of Kill Bill and now Collateral. You and I never seem to see eye-to-eye on denouements. It's part of the genius of the film that it ends where it began. For starters, it's just a great magic trick: We see where Foxx picks Cruise up at the beginning, we even see Cruise and Pinkett Smith pass each other on the escalators, yet it still hits like a punch in the gut when we realize where Cruise is heading at the end. That's just damn fine filmmaking. But it's also crucial that Foxx is required quite literally to man up for the woman of his dreams. He was too scared to call her -- is he going to be too scared to save her? It's the fucking hero's journey writ large. He has undergone quite the spiritual transformation through his night with Cruise, he has gained confidence he'd never had before and shown courage he didn't know he had, but now he's faced with the ultimate test for the ultimate reward, and the only way to be victorious is to vanquish the ultimate villain. It's mythologically epic, man, and it HAS to finish where it started (just like in Heat it HAS to finish with De Niro spotting the heat in Pacino coming around the corner).

I also regularly screen this film for students in one of my classes and I always get oohs-and-aahs from them when we break down that train sequence and I show them Cruise's bullet pattern in the train doors, Mann's brilliant little nugget showing how rigid Cruise is (despite his bullshit about Darwin, the I Ching, adapting, rolling with it, and playing jazz) and how it's the fact that he can't/won't change that brings him down, whereas Foxx can and does change, actually embodying the jazz-playing tenets Cruise only talks, and therefore he survives their head-to-head.

View attachment 1133408

And this is barely scratching the surface of that dense script masterfully played out by Cruise and Foxx and expertly filmed by Mann. The deeper you go into Collateral, the clearer it becomes how far out in front of Training Day it is.



I literally tell my students on Collateral week that it's the perfect film to give the lie to the "mindless action movie" stereotype and to show that there's no such thing as a mindless movie, only mindless viewers. Instead of calling the movie tarded, consider that you may just be watching it like a tard. Give it a serious rewatch and see if it doesn't have a hell of a lot more going on.

I've seen this exact argument for the ending several times.

It's cope. The ending doesn't fit the movie. No amount of confirmation biased led criticism and analysis is going to change that.

He didn't know how to end it the way he wanted without it looking dumb. So he just did it anyway, and hoped his groupies would find a way to rationalize it as genius.

I mean, the rest of the film is so good that it doesn't even matter much to me. But enough to keep it from a 9/10 imo

 

[GoodBadHBK]

Man, first the ending of Kill Bill and now Collateral. You and I never seem to see eye-to-eye on denouements. It's part of the genius of the film that it ends where it began. For starters, it's just a great magic trick: We see where Foxx picks Cruise up at the beginning, we even see Cruise and Pinkett Smith pass each other on the escalators, yet it still hits like a punch in the gut when we realize where Cruise is heading at the end. That's just damn fine filmmaking. But it's also crucial that Foxx is required quite literally to man up for the woman of his dreams. He was too scared to call her -- is he going to be too scared to save her? It's the fucking hero's journey writ large. He has undergone quite the spiritual transformation through his night with Cruise, he has gained confidence he'd never had before and shown courage he didn't know he had, but now he's faced with the ultimate test for the ultimate reward, and the only way to be victorious is to vanquish the ultimate villain. It's mythologically epic, man, and it HAS to finish where it started (just like in Heat it HAS to finish with De Niro spotting the heat in Pacino coming around the corner).

I also regularly screen this film for students in one of my classes and I always get oohs-and-aahs from them when we break down that train sequence and I show them Cruise's bullet pattern in the train doors, Mann's brilliant little nugget showing how rigid Cruise is (despite his bullshit about Darwin, the I Ching, adapting, rolling with it, and playing jazz) and how it's the fact that he can't/won't change that brings him down, whereas Foxx can and does change, actually embodying the jazz-playing tenets Cruise only talks, and therefore he survives their head-to-head.

View attachment 1133408

And this is barely scratching the surface of that dense script masterfully played out by Cruise and Foxx and expertly filmed by Mann. The deeper you go into Collateral, the clearer it becomes how far out in front of Training Day it is.



I literally tell my students on Collateral week that it's the perfect film to give the lie to the "mindless action movie" stereotype and to show that there's no such thing as a mindless movie, only mindless viewers. Instead of calling the movie tarded, consider that you may just be watching it like a tard. Give it a serious rewatch and see if it doesn't have a hell of a lot more going on.

Ok first the ending with kill bill, you cant tell me if it ended with the bride walking carrying her kid towards the camera walking from Bill's home, if it ended right there it would have been a good ending cause it would have. You will need to watch it again with this in mind. The original ending as is doesnt hurt the film at all and im fine with the ending, im just saying if it ended when shes walking away with the music playing towards the camera it would have been a nice way to end it.

As far as collateral goes youre smoking crack if you like the way it ended. I strongly believe the way I would have ended it would have been way way better. Now granted I would have never came up with the concept or been able to do 1% of what Mann accomplished with the film, im just saying on the sidelines perspective I would havs preferred a different ending. If not mine then anything other then what he came up with.

 

[Natural Order]

I remember Tarantino saying something about Collateral being "too blue"....But I think it's great.

All Mann's films have an irritating blue hue to them. It's fucking weird.

 

[Bullitt68]

The ending doesn't fit the movie. No amount of confirmation biased led criticism and analysis is going to change that.

It absolutely fits the movie, which is why it's there, as I actually explained. You just saying "No" isn't an argument. That is what bias looks like. In what way(s) does it not fit? What would a better ending have been (i.e. what ending would've fit)? At least try to make a counterargument. Take a cue from GoodBadHBK.

Ok first the ending with kill bill, you cant tell me if it ended with the bride walking carrying her kid towards the camera walking from Bill's home, if it ended right there it would have been a good ending cause it would have. You will need to watch it again with this in mind.

I can tell you that, I did tell you that in the other thread, I did watch it again with this in mind, and I'm telling you again that the ending is perfect. Has nobody ever read a screenwriting book? Does nobody know or appreciate the concept of "full circle"? When she wakes up from the coma, she scream-cries at the loss of her daughter. When she completes her mission with the bonus of getting back the daughter she thought she'd lost, she cries tears of joy. That's screenwriting 101. That's perfection. That's why Tarantino's Tarantino.

As far as collateral goes youre smoking crack if you like the way it ended. I strongly believe the way I would have ended it would have been way way better. Now granted I would have never came up with the concept or been able to do 1% of what Mann accomplished with the film, im just saying on the sidelines perspective I would havs preferred a different ending. If not mine then anything other then what he came up with.

I've taught this to like 10 classrooms of 25-30 students and a dozen more online classes of 20-30 students. Whatever that math is, literally nobody has ever complained about the ending, and I would never have even been able to imagine anyone wanting as terrible an ending that has nothing to do with anything done character-wise or theme-wise as Foxx getting arrested. There's a reason the Fever shootout turns into such a shit-show. The authorities are idiots and even Ruffalo is only so smart. It's not about the law of the justice system, it's about the law of the jungle, and it turns out Cruise wasn't the apex predator he thought he was nor was Foxx the defenseless doe he turned himself into over years of inaction and self-doubt. If you think anything other than that ending would've been better, then you don't understand the movie you watched. Complaining about that perfectly motivated, thematically bulletproof ending is tantamount to complaining about the ending of The Sopranos or Goodfellas or Logan or any number of movies and TV shows that brilliantly set up their conclusions.

 

[thecoldbloodedone]

I need to re watch both. Cruise is excellent in everything he does but Training day was the only movie I've seen with Denzel that I actually liked his performance.

Watch 'Devil in a Blue Dress'....Denzel is most likeable in that, 90's detective noir.

Also 'Out of Time' is a fun one from the early 2000's.

 

[GoodBadHBK]

It absolutely fits the movie, which is why it's there, as I actually explained. You just saying "No" isn't an argument. That is what bias looks like. In what way(s) does it not fit? What would a better ending have been (i.e. what ending would've fit)? At least try to make a counterargument. Take a cue from GoodBadHBK.



I can tell you that, I did tell you that in the other thread, I did watch it again with this in mind, and I'm telling you again that the ending is perfect. Has nobody ever read a screenwriting book? Does nobody know or appreciate the concept of "full circle"? When she wakes up from the coma, she scream-cries at the loss of her daughter. When she completes her mission with the bonus of getting back the daughter she thought she'd lost, she cries tears of joy. That's screenwriting 101. That's perfection. That's why Tarantino's Tarantino.



I've taught this to like 10 classrooms of 25-30 students and a dozen more online classes of 20-30 students. Whatever that math is, literally nobody has ever complained about the ending, and I would never have even been able to imagine anyone wanting as terrible an ending that has nothing to do with anything done character-wise or theme-wise as Foxx getting arrested. There's a reason the Fever shootout turns into such a shit-show. The authorities are idiots and even Ruffalo is only so smart. It's not about the law of the justice system, it's about the law of the jungle, and it turns out Cruise wasn't the apex predator he thought he was nor was Foxx the defenseless doe he turned himself into over years of inaction and self-doubt. If you think anything other than that ending would've been better, then you don't understand the movie you watched. Complaining about that perfectly motivated, thematically bulletproof ending is tantamount to complaining about the ending of The Sopranos or Goodfellas or Logan or any number of movies and TV shows that brilliantly set up their conclusions.

Well then explain this, when tom cruise kills the 2 or 3 white guys robbing Jamie Foxx, why does he call them "homies"

I've neve cared for the ending of collateral and never will. The kill bill ending comment isnt a complaint in the slightest just more of a observation. Again im fine with how it did end.

Collateral however is a good movie at best. Never loved it Never will. Cruise was great as the villian and the action is great but the obvious rewrite of the "homies" scene plus the ending has never sat well with me and never will. You need another actor on the level of Tom Cruise to make the original ending work. Denzel comes to mind.

 

[revoltub]

It absolutely fits the movie, which is why it's there, as I actually explained. You just saying "No" isn't an argument. That is what bias looks like. In what way(s) does it not fit? What would a better ending have been (i.e. what ending would've fit)? At least try to make a counterargument. Take a cue from GoodBadHBK.



I can tell you that, I did tell you that in the other thread, I did watch it again with this in mind, and I'm telling you again that the ending is perfect. Has nobody ever read a screenwriting book? Does nobody know or appreciate the concept of "full circle"? When she wakes up from the coma, she scream-cries at the loss of her daughter. When she completes her mission with the bonus of getting back the daughter she thought she'd lost, she cries tears of joy. That's screenwriting 101. That's perfection. That's why Tarantino's Tarantino.



I've taught this to like 10 classrooms of 25-30 students and a dozen more online classes of 20-30 students. Whatever that math is, literally nobody has ever complained about the ending, and I would never have even been able to imagine anyone wanting as terrible an ending that has nothing to do with anything done character-wise or theme-wise as Foxx getting arrested. There's a reason the Fever shootout turns into such a shit-show. The authorities are idiots and even Ruffalo is only so smart. It's not about the law of the justice system, it's about the law of the jungle, and it turns out Cruise wasn't the apex predator he thought he was nor was Foxx the defenseless doe he turned himself into over years of inaction and self-doubt. If you think anything other than that ending would've been better, then you don't understand the movie you watched. Complaining about that perfectly motivated, thematically bulletproof ending is tantamount to complaining about the ending of The Sopranos or Goodfellas or Logan or any number of movies and TV shows that brilliantly set up their conclusions.

In what way does it fit? The ending only works if you force yourself to believe fox can kill cruise. Nothing in the movie leads you to believe this.

It's called watching the movie.

 

[revoltub]

If nobody complained about the ending after 30 classes then you are lying.

 

[Natural Order]

Wild that somebody is defending the mid-tier, generally unbelievable ending to Collateral. Great movie, terribly weak finish. Needed something more crafty to have you believe Foxx could take out Cruise and Mann didn't do it. Didn't ruin it all, but a bit of a guffaw moment imo.

Both Collateral and Training Day are solid 8's from me

 

[Severen]

It's the fucking hero's journey writ large. He has undergone quite the spiritual transformation through his night with Cruise, he has gained confidence he'd never had before and shown courage he didn't know he had, but now he's faced with the ultimate test for the ultimate reward, and the only way to be victorious is to vanquish the ultimate villain. It's mythologically epic, man, and it HAS to finish where it started (just like in Heat it HAS to finish with De Niro spotting the heat in Pacino coming around the corner).

Yes it's a classic trope but it means nothing if its not executed well, which is something you are completely looking past.

I also regularly screen this film for students in one of my classes and I always get oohs-and-aahs from them when we break down that train sequence and I show them Cruise's bullet pattern in the train doors, Mann's brilliant little nugget showing how rigid Cruise is (despite his bullshit about Darwin, the I Ching, adapting, rolling with it, and playing jazz) and how it's the fact that he can't/won't change that brings him down, whereas Foxx can and does change, actually embodying the jazz-playing tenets Cruise only talks, and therefore he survives their head-to-head.

So because a random cab driver was able to conjure his inner jazz playing tenets he was able to out fox and out shoot an elite hit man head to head?

This is the kind of pseudo intellectual nonsense that passes for modern film analysis which I often see in those pretentious video essays on youtube where they try and dress up any old nonsense as high level art when in reality its just dumb. Under no circumstances should Foxx's character been able to defeat Cruise head to head, zero, none, should have been completely off limits. Cruise just standing there in the open shooting blindly through a door like an untrained moron, completely contradicted the character that was portrayed for the whole movie, it was just not plausible and dumb no matter how hard you try and dress it up. He went out cheaply in dumb fashion which let down the movie. It means nothing for the hero to vanquish the ultimate villain if he slips on a banana skin, which is what basically happened. It was a cookie cutter ending that you would expect to see in some silly B movie late at night.

Complaining about that perfectly motivated, thematically bulletproof ending

It was logically inconsistent and violated the suspension of disbelief. You are missing the forest for the trees if you are just focusing on the themes. It has to work on a nuts and bolts level first.

 

[Jack Reacheround]

Collateral

I thought Training Day was decent, but I loved Collateral.