Just for fun.

August 3, 2009 3:57 PM

FilmFilter: In Collateral, is Vincent going to kill Max at the end of the night?

In Michael Mann's Collateral, far and away one of my favorite movies, I'm never really sure of one thing. Is Vincent going to kill Max at the end of the night, like Mark Ruffalo's character suspects? Or is he actually going to let Max live? Or, did Mann mean for there to be ambiguity about it? Somehow this fuzziness hasn't depreciated my affection for the movie at all.

The only hint that Vincent will kill Max is that Ruffalo's detective alludes to the earlier Bay Area case. And, well, Max knows what Vincent looks like and thinks like. And can also link Vincent to Felix Reyes.

But, evidence to the contrary --
- Vincent: "do x and you might make it through tonight alive."
- Vincent "if you make it out of here, you should call her" (her, of course, being Jada Pinkett Smith's character Annie. Which is odd, because Vincent knows he's going to kill Annie. But the audience doesn't at the time.) -- he actually says this after the visit to Felix, which is really, really weird.

So, is Vincent just f-n with Max? Is he going to kill him? Or is there a chance that he was actually going to let him live?

posted by the NATURAL to media & arts (13 comments total)

Yes.

Vincent: "do x and you might make it through tonight alive."

Vincent is a liar. And he says "might" anyway.

Vincent "if you make it out of here, you should call her"

Notice the qualifier. And that he knows (believes) she'll be dead anyway.

So, is Vincent just f-n with Max?

Not so much f-n with him as stringing him along so he'll cooperate.

Is he going to kill him?

Of course.

Or is there a chance that he was actually going to let him live?

None whatsoever.
posted by The World Famous at 4:01 PM on August 3 [2 favorites]

It's been a while since I've seen the movie, but I think my impression was that Vincent would kill Max at the end of the night, tying up loose ends. Obviously he wouldn't tell Max he was a dead man for sure, it wouldn't make Max very motivated to go along.
posted by axiom at 4:02 PM on August 3

Hmmm... I guess my rationale was: since Vincent is the one with the gun, why does he even need to cajole Max into doing anything? The gun compels him to.
posted by the NATURAL at 4:09 PM on August 3

I'm not sure it's clear that he was planning on killing Max.

He develops a relationship with Max during their excursion that would suggest an emotional connection that was rare for Vincent. He didn't really need Max to finish up what he needed to do. If he wanted to kill Max, he could have done it in the chaos of the nightclub scene to eliminate loose ends. Instead he made sure to find him so that they could continue on together, and it probably wasn't because he needed him specifically as a driver. I think it's because he finds himself intertwined with Max on a personal level. Part of the story is catching brief glimpses of that humanity within Vincent that makes his death at the end all that more compelling.

So maybe. But I think that Vincent came to respect Max on a level that keeps it an open question.
posted by SpacemanStix at 5:01 PM on August 3

Yes, Vincent is going to kill him, just like he kills the nightclub owner for the "incorrect" answer about Miles Davis. It doesn't matter what Max does. He'll die just like the other man, who was going to die no matter what answer he gave Vincent.

Vincent is crazy. Max is right -- he is a sociopath. It's only when Max realizes this, that there's no way out that involves staying with Vincent, does he do anything about it, crashing the car and setting up the final sequence.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:01 PM on August 3

Yes. Fanning and the other cops mention other cases where Vincent's picked up cabbies and forced them to play along, resulting in disastrous consequences for the cabbies.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 5:32 PM on August 3

The gun doesn't "compel" you if you know you are going to die anyway.

1) If you know you will be killed soon, you would do anything to improve your chances of living, even something as desperate-seeming as crashing a moving car.

2) So it's in Vincent's best interests to create the illusion of hope, such that waiting for the hope seems more rational than a desperate escape attempt (car crash), attacking him, or any other action that would endanger Vincent and his mission.
posted by Spacelegoman at 5:46 PM on August 3

Vincent was definitely planning on killing Max. Not only is he a sociopath, but it's his method of offloading suspicion. During the police surveillance scene, they mention a cabbie in a different city who killed several people in one night, then himself. This is meant to suggest rather strongly that it was Vincent's M.O. to operate this way, and that Max was doomed.
posted by Doctor Suarez at 6:15 PM on August 3

Wait, but what about these details --
1. When Fanning and Max are leaving Fever (the nightclub), Vincent definitely could've offed Max just like he offs Fanning. When Max asks him about that while still in shock, Vincent answers that he's protecting him (and, until Max explains that Fanning was a cop, legitimately seems to believe that he saved Max from one of Felix's hitmen or something)

2. At the end of the movie, I'd argue that SpacemanStix' idea is supported. Vincent has another clip and could've reloaded and killed both Annie and Max, who had no bullets left. Instead, during the "brief glimpse into Vincent's humanity," he comes to see the irony and defeat in his situation, and decides that Max really has gotten the better of him.

I mean, are we just ignoring the other possible answer here, that Mann deliberately left it open-ended? Or am I (and I suppose, Stix) just being stubborn and refusing to admit our mistake? Because everyone else seems to see it as obvious and clear.
posted by the NATURAL at 6:40 PM on August 3

On reflection of the input of everyone else here, I'm going to have to amend my answer. It seems likely and consistent with his character, although I always felt that there was something going on in their relationship that perhaps called this into question a bit.

What is interesting is that during the times that I've watched it, I've always interpreted Max's crashing of the car as being about him wanting to rescue the others on the list, not his own life. His efforts up until this point didn't seem to be as much about escaping as about pursuading Vincent to not follow through on his agenda (e.g., he tossed the papers into the highway, he didn't try to just escape). I viewed the crash as an extention of his frustration with Vincent's inability to be persuaded, so he was making a sacrifice to keep Vincent from following through.
posted by SpacemanStix at 6:47 PM on August 3

After reflecting even a bit more (I can see both sides of this):

I think it was likely Vincent's plan to kill Max from the beginning, consistent with his MO. But during the course of the plan, we get to the point where we don't know for sure, as he made a connection with Max along the way. Remember where Vincent says to Max, "I should only kill people after I get to know them?" All of Vincent's killing at this point was impersonal and mechanical. He didn't "know" them. I think we're supposed to feel that Max did connect with Vincent in a way that got past that, especially when Max was questioning him point blank about his motives and upbringing. We see this reflected in the fact that Vincent goes out of his way to keep with Max, even to the point of rescuing him at the nightclub. Something broke through a kink in his armor, even if it wasn't much.

If the movie had ended differently and it was time for Vincent to kill Max after the assignment was done, I could see him standing there thinking he needed to kill Max, but hesitating. The end would be unclear.

Do we know for sure? I don't think so. But I think we're supposed to wonder if we saw Max reach something human in Vincent, even if it wasn't effective in the end.
posted by SpacemanStix at 7:20 PM on August 3

I've always believed that Vincent planned to kill Max once he finished going through his list. As long as Max is alive and can identify Vincent, he's a liability. There's no way Vincent would leave that loose end untied. While I definitely agree with the idea that Vincent mostly likely had a different relationship with Max than he did with other cabbies, he still had a job to do and a reputation to uphold. This is why Vincent had to "rescue" Max at the nightclub -- to keep the charade going and to keep him from becoming a witness. If Vincent had killed Max at the club, but still gone on to kill Annie, it would have made it obvious to the authorities that Max wasn't acting alone, and then they would be after Vincent in some way, which he obviously didn't want. Of course, Vincent didn't know that Fanning believed Max or that he was a cop in the first place, but from Vincent's past success(es) using cab drivers, I'm sure he was pretty confident that he had the authorities fooled this time as well.

The gun doesn't "compel" you if you know you are going to die anyway.
Vincent also knew where Max's mom was staying, and wasn't afraid to let him know that.

Vincent has another clip and could've reloaded and killed both Annie and Max
I always interpreted it as Vincent knew he was dying, and killing them would be pointless since he wasn't going to make it off the train to enjoy his money.

As for the car crash, I think Cool Papa Bell and SpacemanStix are both right -- it was about escape AND screwing up Vincent's plan.
posted by puritycontrol at 9:33 PM on August 3 [1 favorite]

I read the original script, back when the action was set in New York. No question that Max was a dead man driving.
posted by Hogshead at 4:50 AM on August 4 [1 favorite]