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Spoiler Warning

I watched Collateral this week, which I really enjoyed. This movie has such wonderful pacing, and isn't afraid to just hang out and let a mood develop. This is the kind of movie you wouldn't expect to be a great theater movie (as opposed to DVD.) But it turns out the big screen helps you be immersed in the pacing. I suspect if you watched it at home the distractions around the home would grab your attention in the slow moments. Also, the sound and music is fantastic in setting the moods and being part of the story. The immersive sound experience in the theater really adds to this too. Unless you have an excellent home theater setup I highly recommend catching this in a theater.

Except the movie has one big flaw. The ending is terrible. The whole situation actually reminded me really strongly of Heat. They're both well paced movies that have a great sense of LA, and bad endings. The key to each of them is the movies set up important premises with their characters, then invalidate them in the ending.

In Collateral, it's clearly setup that Tom Cruise is a badass and could kill Jamie Fox without really trying. When Jamie Fox chooses to follow Tom to his last hit, he should not be expecting to live through that encounter. Hollywood wouldn't allow that though, Jamie can't die in this film. But the movie does give itself a way out. Tom completely underestimates Jamie in a confrontation in the office building, which could have been hit fatal flaw. But no, they had to build drama for a silly subway moment.

Heat was slightly different. In Heat the movie clearly sets up that Deniro needs to be able to walk away from everything in his life for 30 seconds flat when things get tight. The deal the movie makes is if he's willing to do that he'll get away, and we as the audience buy into that. So as the end comes around he's presented with a string of choices. He can't let the work stuff go. He decides to work the one final job, then decides he has to go after the people who crossed him. In the end he knows he should leave Waingro alone, but can't do it. That's ok - he's good enough to pull it off, but it forces him to test his 30 seconds theory. This leads to a spectacularly bad ending. When I watch this movie at home I literally press stop after he makes that choice and jumps over the ivy covered wall. My ending is: "he gets away."

In this same vein The Last Samurai had a similar ending. The movie sets up a choice for Tom Cruise. He knows going into battle will cause his death, and still chooses to because of he believes in what the Samurai believe in. The movie invalidates itself when it doesn't make Tom pay for this choice.

These kinds of things are what bad endings are made of. Movies have themes, and when the endings go against those themes it just doesn't jive. These are the most obnoxious movies, and they're even worse when they're attached to good films - like the three I've mentioned here.

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