MAX (Jamie Foxx) has lived the mundane life of a cab driver for 12 years. The faces have come and gone from his rearview mirror, people and places he's long since forgotten - until tonight.

Vincent (Tom Cruise) is a contract killer. When an offshore drug-trafficking cartel learns they are about to be indicted by a federal grand jury, they mount an operation to identify and kill the key witnesses, and the last stage is tonight. Tonight, Vincent arrives in L.A - and five bodies are supposed to fall.

Circumstances cause Vincent to hijack Max's taxicab, and Max becomes collateral - an expendable person in the wrong place at the wrong time. Through the night, Vincent forces Max to drive him to each assigned destination. And as the LAPD and FBI race to intercept them, Max and Vincent's survival becomes dependent on each other in ways neither would have imagined.

Collateral director/producer Michael Mann states: "One of the things that attracted me to the project was the compression of time - it all happens in one night. The whole story takes place between 6pm and about 4am in this most contemporary of American cities, where coyotes roam the streets as if the layer of civilisation is new and temporary. That's the world I wanted Max and Vincent moving through as the story unfolds.

"Tonight, everything in their lives is changing. Totally. Forever. Finality has shown up on the horizon, heading this way. This is the collision of two lives in very extreme circumstances. It is a compression of all they have been and who they think they might be, all collapsed into the events of one night. I liked the intensity, the immediacy of that."

In a rare villainous turn, Tom Cruise stars in the role of Vincent, though he doesn't see even this cold-blooded killer in entirely black and white terms.

"I've played heroes and anti-heroes, and I thought Vincent was just a great charactervery dynamic," says Cruise.

"I wanted to explore the character and get an understanding of him, particularly because he's demonstrating some seriously anti-social behaviour," he laughs. "One of the first things I try to do is find the character's moral code because, whether you agree with them or not, people have their own moral codes. Vincent was hired to do a job and it would be a breach of his moral code not to do it. He's an absolute professional. I looked at it from that point of view, getting into the character."

Vincent's appearance also represents something of a departure for Cruise, with his steel grey hair and salt-and-pepper stubbled face. "I wanted the character to look very different from Tom Cruise, to rough up the surface appearance and give him a certain anonymity," says Mann.

"Michael came up with the whole visual design of the character - the hair, the beard, the suit," remarks Cruise.

"We worked it out on the computer first and Michael's eye is incredible. I just loved working with him; he was so absolutely thorough. We took the time to put together Vincent's history, and those back stories very much gave us a point of reference of where to start with the character and where to go.

"One of the things we always discussed was when do you start to see that first crack appear in Vincent's veneer," says Cruise.

"At the beginning of the picture, he looks just perfect, a silver fox coming into town. But I believe that Max definitely has an effect on Vincent, so it's on this night that there is a crack of humanity in this guy."

Jamie Foxx, who stars as Max, confirms that once his character gets over the initial shock of finding out who Vincent is and what is going on, there is a gradual shift in their relationship.

"The amazing thing about the relationship between these two guys is that, in some crazy way, Max is inspired by Vincent. It's as if Max has been just bursting at the seams for something different in his life, and when it happens he eventually embraces it."

Jada Pinkett Smith co-stars as United States Attorney Annie Farrell. The actress says: "One of the themes of the film that was really interesting to me was how people's paths cross - the dynamics of meeting someone you never imagined could affect you in such a substantial way. That's what happens with Annie and Max.

"He gives her the opportunity to express who she really is, and she feels comfortable enough with him to open up and reveal something about herself she probably hasn't told another human being.

"When she gets out of the cab, she's thinking, I might never see this guy againmaybe I should give him my cardbut he's a cab driver.' But they had made this incredible connection, and it broke through any preconceived ideas of who this cat might be.

"It just teaches you that you have to be open and ready, because you never know what a chance meeting could lead to."