'Collateral' at 20: Peeking at That Inner Damage

It might not be Michael Mann's masterpiece, but it's *a* masterpiece.

A few years ago, I had the chance to interview Michael Mann. He was filming Ferrari in Italy but he needed to promote Heat 2, the novelized sequel (co-written with Meg Gardiner) to his cinematic masterpiece, and the PR person told me I’d get two questions at most, make ‘em good.

So I asked a highfalutin’ thematic question about the book’s protagonist, Chris Shiherlis (played by Val Kilmer in the original film), and received an appropriately dense answer about the changeover of crime in the late 20th century from analogue to digital, bullets to bits. “The evolving of Shiherlis as an innovator/proponent of a ‘seismic historical’ transition of crime was exactly the narrative ambition and challenge,” he told me.

As a genre, crime fiction has some major insecurities when it comes to philosophical heft, and with good reason. It’s always trying to outrun …