When I read the novel `Collateral', the latest book based on blockbuster movie starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx, I was anticipating a fast paced action flick with the usual car chase scenes and meaningless gunfights. Instead, I left the cinema in a deep state of thought, reflecting upon the characters and what the writer of the movie had been trying to put across to the audience through them.

In the movie `Collateral', Jamie Foxx takes on the role of Max, a taxi driver of twelve years while Tom Cruise plays Vincent, a contract killer. Circumstances bring them both together and Foxx ends up chauffeuring Cruise to the destinations of his victims.

Surprisingly, it was not so much of the storyline or plot which captured me but the in depth characterization of Max and Vincent.

Max has been roaming the streets of Los Angeles for the past twelve...