Released August 6, 2004 Michael Mann‘s thriller Collateral starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx is one of my favorite films. It’s a film that essentially serves as a love letter to the city of Los Angeles and it celebrated its eighth birthday a little over three weeks ago. So, while there are several films to choose from when it comes to mapping out their locations, I felt the story of the contract killer, Vincent (Cruise), and his reluctant cab driver chauffeur, Max (Foxx), would serve as a perfect starting point when to comes to this brand new feature here on the newly redesigned Rope of Silicon.
Granted, in the eight years since the film was released Los Angeles has gone through some changes, but many locations are still exactly as they were seen in the film. Using the interactive Google Maps feature directly below I’ll take you through 17 of the locales one-by-one.
By clicking on the list of moments from the film in the left-hand column the map on the right will change to preview information from each location. You’ll be met with addresses, images and in many cases clips from the film along with brief commentary on each location. Like any other time you use Google Maps, you can zoom in all the way down to street level and zoom back out. In some instances I have included a “More details” link, which will take you to a closer look at some locations to see how they appear now compared to how they appeared in the movie.
One thing that’s a little unfortunate in this case is Collateral is shot entirely at night while Google Maps only features locations in daylight, but I guess for those of us that don’t live in the Los Angeles area it’s a perfect way to see the city in a much different light.
NOTE: You will need Javascript enabled in order for this feature to work and an up-to-date web browser is suggested.
- Bag Drop
- Max’s Cab Depot
- Getting Some Gas
- Max Picks up Vincent
- Ramone Killed
- Pulled over by the cops
- Sylvester Clarke killed
- “Yo homey! Is that my briefcase?”
- Daniel Baker is killed
- Max throws Vincent’s briefcase from a bridge
- Max poses as Vincent at El Rodeo bar
- Club Fever
- Max crashes the cab
- Max Steals a cell phone
- Vincent Hunts Annie
- Metro Station Chase
- Harbor Freeway Station
- End of the Line
I have to give credit to a pair of sources that added loads of help putting this map together, the first is Movie Locations and the other is Seeing Stars.
