Tom Cruise , Larry Fishburne and Batman -Writing for the Actor
Yet, in "Collateral" the screen writer and actor work on character development that merge into a symbiosis. Vincent appears as a business man in Act one. Has he exchanged spreadsheets in the airport with a fellow travel?
The scenes in "Collateral" have fifty-nine to sixty shots, that mold the film toward a strong third act. In "Minority Report" the character is introduced in act one as a dashing police officer. He saves lives, solves murder and does drugs. The characters deconstruction is obvious. There is no deconstruction, the character seeks to regain his honor. In " Collateral" the character believes he is the good guy.
As a screenwriter one has to consider the case of Tom and Laurence, one must confront actors who have played race car drivers, top gun pilots and super spies. In " Collateral," the writers fool the audience. How can this guy be bad, he's handsome, smiles a lot but, a killer? Why should the audience believe the character is bad, if Tom Cruise has selected the role?
To confront this problem, the screenwriters use the simple trick of a deadline, the murders happen quickly. After viewing the film several times they still happen unexpectedly. One moment Cruise is smiling, idle chit chat, in the next moment someone is dead. Faced with the basic conflict of good and evil the screenwriter must twist his words into phrases an actor wants to repeat on film. Call it dramatic technique but to create a character like Vincent, one the audience should hate but secretly loves, requires an understanding of plot and internal action.
Perhaps, Laurence Fishburne gave Tom the role model of the mad killer in the "King of New York." Jimmy Jump as played by Fishburne is a bad character. Since then Fishburne has become known as Morpheus, his Matrix alter ego. Yet, like Tom, Larry has divested himself into different characters as in " Boys in the Hood, School Daze and Mystic River."
Their is a common thread between these two actors and their action and dramatic roles. The good and the bad, are portrayed in Fishburnes' Bumpy Johnson a character in "Hoodlum."
I believe it's Fishburnes' finest role. Fishburne's theme of false father figures of course culminated in "The Matrix." By now you may wonder what Tom and Larry have in common with Batman. The answer is their choice of flawed characters. Perhaps the greatest of actors and movies feature
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