A thriller orchestrated by a Michael Mann at the top, “Collateral” is one of the filmmaker’s major works. The opportunity to also see a very small appearance by Jason Statham at the start of the film. A cameo, but not just any cameo!
In the streets of Los Angeles, a hitman (Tom Cruise) forces an honest taxi driver (Jamie Foxx) to drive him from crime to crime… A twilight and melancholy thriller broadcast this evening on Arte, Collateral is certainly in the top of the filmography of the immense Michael Mann.
Filming at night like no one else, he creates a masterful thriller, in which Tom Cruise, in return for his job, reveals himself to be a calculating and amoral sociopath. One of the best roles of his great career in fact.
If you pause almost at the very beginning of the film, at 51 seconds, you will see actor Jason Statham strolling through the airport where Tom Cruise is arriving. At 1:03, the two collide, or rather pretend to collide, to exchange their identical bags; that of Cruise actually including information relating to the targets he came to shoot down:
United International Pictures (UIP)
Jason Statham is content with this brief appearance in Mann’s film, since he is completely absent from the rest of the film. Believing that this “role” was more of a mini cameo than anything else, the actor even asked not to be credited in the credits.
The extremely tasty anecdote about him is that it is actually Frank Martin, the character he played in the Transporter saga! Movie buffs have long speculated about this possibility, without ever having formal confirmation. Even if Louis Leterrier, director of Transporter 1 and 2, assured at the time that Statham’s character in Collateral was Frank Martin.
It was finally years after the film’s release, in 2022, that the final confirmation came, from none other than Collateral screenwriter Stuart Beattie. In a podcast called Collateral Confessionshe confirmed that it was indeed this character.
“Of course, it’s Frank Martin from Transporter. I asked Jason about it… Yes, absolutely. Yes, it’s hot. Same world… the studio will never admit it, but in my head, it’s absolutely him.”