Collateral (2004)
Tom Cruise: Vincent
Photos
Quotes
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Vincent : Look in the mirror. Paper towels, clean cab. Limo company some day. How much you got saved?
Max : That ain't any of your business.
Vincent : Someday? Someday my dream will come? One night you will wake up and discover it never happened. It's all turned around on you. It never will. Suddenly you are old. Didn't happen, and it never will, because you were never going to do it anyway. You'll push it into memory and then zone out in your barco lounger, being hypnotized by daytime TV for the rest of your life. Don't you talk to me about murder. All it ever took was a down payment on a Lincoln town car. That girl,you can't even call that girl. What the fuck are you still doing driving a cab?
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Vincent : Get with it. Millions of galaxies of hundreds of millions of stars, in a speck on one in a blink. That's us, lost in space. The cop, you, me... Who notices?
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[last lines]
Vincent : A guy gets on the MTA here L.A. and dies. Think anybody'll notice?
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Vincent : Take comfort in knowing you never had a choice.
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Vincent : Max, six billion people on the planet, you're getting bent out of shape cause of one fat guy.
Max : Well, who was he?
Vincent : What do you care? Have you ever heard of Rwanda?
Max : Yes, I know Rwanda.
Vincent : Well, tens of thousands killed before sundown. Nobody's killed people that fast since Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Did you bat an eye, Max?
Max : What?
Vincent : Did you join Amnesty International, Oxfam, Save the Whales, Greenpeace, or something? No. I off one fat Angelino and you throw a hissy fit.
Max : Man, I don't know any Rwandans.
Vincent : You don't know the guy in the trunk, either.
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Vincent : Most people - same job, same gig, doing the same thing 10 years from now. Us, we don't know what we are doing 10 minutes from now.
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Vincent : They project onto you their flaws, what they don't like about themselves. I had a father like that.
Max : Mothers are worse.
Vincent : Wouldn't know. My mother died before I remember her.
Max : What about your father?
Vincent : Hated everything I did. Got drunk, beat me up. In and out of foster homes, that kinda thing.
Max : And then?
Vincent : I killed him. I was twelve.
[pauses, then laughs]
Vincent : I'm kidding. He died of liver disease.
Max : Well, I'm sorry.
Vincent : No, you're not.
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Vincent : Max, I do this for a living!
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Vincent : Okay, look, here's the deal. Man, you were gonna drive me around tonight, never be the wiser, but El Gordo got in front of a window, did his high dive, we're into Plan B. Still breathing? Now we gotta make the best of it, improvise, adapt to the environment, Darwin, shit happens, I Ching, whatever man, we gotta roll with it.
Max : I Ching? What are you talking about, man? You threw a man out of a window.
Vincent : I didn't throw him. He *fell*
Max : Well what did he do to you?
Vincent : What?
Max : What did he do to *you*?
Vincent : Nothing. I only met him tonight.
Max : You just met him once and you killed him like that?
Vincent : What? I should only kill people after I get to know them?
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Max : You're full of shit.
Vincent : I'm full of shit? You're a monument of it. You even bullshitted yourself, all I am is taking out the garbage, killing bad people.
Max : Yeah, well that's what you said.
Vincent : You believed me?
Max : Then what'd they do?
Vincent : How do I know, you know? They all got that 'witness for the prosecution' look to me. Probably some major federal indictment of somebody who majorly does not want to get indicted.
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Max : First time in L.A.?
Vincent : No. Tell you the truth, whenever I'm here I can't wait to leave. It's too sprawled out, disconnected. You know? That's me. You like it?
Max : It's my home.
Vincent : 17 million people. This was a country, it'd be the fifth biggest economy in the world and nobody knows each other. I read about this guy, gets on the MTA here, dies.
Max : Oh.
Vincent : Six hours he's riding the subway before anybody notices his corpse doing laps around L.A., people on and off sitting next to him. Nobody notices.
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[Max is on the radio dispatch with his boss, Lenny]
Max : Yeah, Lenny, what's up? It's me.
Lenny : Just got off the phone with the cops. Desk sergeant called to check if you brought the cab in?
Max : Yeah, so?
Lenny : So, aside from I hate talking to cops, they tell me you crashed the goddamn cab?
Max : No, no, I got crashed into. I didn't...
Lenny : Do I care what, where, why? You're paying.
[Vincent is trying to think of what Max should say next]
Vincent : [to Max] It was an accident. You're not liable.
Max : It was an accident. I'm not liable.
Lenny : Bullshit. I'm making you liable. It's coming out of your goddamn pocket.
Vincent : [to Max] You tell him to stick this cab up his fat ass.
Max : I can't do that, that's my boss.
Vincent : So?
Max : I need my job.
Vincent : No, you don't.
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[after Max crashes the cab]
Vincent : Well, that was brilliant...
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Vincent : Someday my dream will come. One night you'll wake up and you'll discover it never happened. It's all turned around on you and it never will. Suddenly you are old, didn't happened and it never will, 'cause you were never going to do it anyway.
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Vincent : Yo, homie... that my briefcase?
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[warning Max when two policemen have them pulled over]
Vincent : If you open that trunk, they go inside.
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Vincent : You attract attention, you're going to get people killed who didn't need to be.
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[over the dispatch system]
Lenny : Still there? I'm talking to you. Max. Max!
Vincent : He's not paying you a damn thing.
Lenny : Who the hell is this?
Vincent : Albert Ricardo, Assistant U.S. Attorney, a passenger in this cab, and I'm reporting you to the D.M.V.
Lenny : Let's not, oh, let's not get excited.
Vincent : Not get excited? How am I supposed to not get excited? Listen, you try to extort a working man. You know goddamn well your collision policy and general liability umbrella will cover the damages. And what are you trying to pull, you sarcastic prick?
Lenny : Look, I was just trying to...
Vincent : Tell it to him.
[to Max]
Vincent : Tell him he's an asshole. Go ahead.
Max : [to Lenny] You're an asshole.
Vincent : Tell him he pulls this shit again, you're gonna stick this yellow cab up his fat ass.
Max : [to Lenny] And, and next time you pull any shit, I'm gonna... I'm gonna have to stick this yellow cab up... up your fat ass.
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[after Vincent and Max load a corpse into the cab's trunk]
Vincent : Lets go.
Max : Hey, why don't you just take the cab?
Vincent : Take the cab?
Max : Yeah, you take it. I'll - I'll chill. I'll - I'll just chill. They don't even know who's driving these things half the time anyway. They never check or anything. Okay... so... just - just take it. You, me...
Vincent : You promise not to tell anybody right?
Max : Yeah... yeah... yeah... promise.
Vincent : Get in the fucking car.
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Vincent : [after the nightclub shootout] Only thing that didn't show up is the Polish cavalry.
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Vincent : Limos, huh?
Max : Don't start.
Vincent : Hey, I'm not the one lying to my mother.
Max : She hears what she wants to hear. I don't disillusion her.
Vincent : Yeah, right. Maybe she hears what you tell her.
Max : Whatever I tell her is never good enough anyway. It's always been that way. So whats at El Rodeo?
Vincent : Just drive.
Vincent : They project onto you their flaws. What they don't like about themselves, their lives, whatever. They rank on you instead.
Max : How do you know?"
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Vincent : [Max and Vincent have pulled up outside El Rodeo, an LA nightclub] Give me your wallet. Come on.
Max : Give you my wallet. For what?
Vincent : I'll hold it for you in case the people inside search you.
Max : Who's searching?
Vincent : The people inside. Go in, ask for Felix. He's expecting you.
Max : Felix?
Vincent : Yeah.
Max : What does he look like?
Vincent : I don't know. I've never met him.
Max : Who is he?
Vincent : He's connected to the guys who hired me.
Max : I don't get it.
Vincent : You destroyed my workups. Number Four is due. What'd you think? The night's over? Called on account of rain? You go in there. Say you're me. Score the backups. They'll be on flash drive or CD.
Max : Me? How come you don't go?
Vincent : I don't meet people. Risk management. Anonymity. I protect mine. You're not gonna' screw that up. I got a contract with they're bosses. These guys don't get to meet me. They don't know what I look like.
Max : [hesitating] If I don't pull it off, then...
Vincent : They will kill you. Now, you've got ten minutes. At 10:01 I drive to the hospital and execute your mother on my way out of town. And don't pretend indifference.
Max : I can't do this. I can't.
Vincent : What are you talking about? Sure you can, man. Come on. Hey! Hey!
Max : Look, man. If I do this, I'm just gonna end up getting other people killed.
Vincent : Out of options, Max. Just take comfort in knowing you never had a choice.
Max : How long have you been doing this?
Vincent : Why?
Max : Just in case they ask.
Vincent : Private sector, six years.
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Max : What's with you, man?
Vincent : As in?
Max : As in, if somebody had a gun to your head and said, "You gotta tell me what's going on with this person over here or I'm gonna kill you. What is driving him? What is he thinking?" You know, you couldn't do it, could you? Because they would have to kill your ass because you don't know what anyone else is thinking. I think you're low, my brother. Way low.
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Vincent : [to Max when pulled over by police] Don't get me cornered. You don't have the trunk space.
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Vincent : Of all the cabbies in L.A. I get Max, Sigmund Freud meets Dr. Ruth.
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Vincent : [pulls a gun on Max] Red light, Max.
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Max : I never learned to listen to jazz.
Vincent : It's off-melody. Behind the notes. Not what's expected. Improvising, like tonight.
Max : Like tonight?
Vincent : Most people, ten years from now, same job, same place, same routine. Everything the same. Just keeping it safe over and over and over. Ten years from now... man, you don't know where you'll be ten minutes from now. Do you?
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Vincent : You Like Jazz?
