Film Theory: Collateral Is A Grand Theft Auto Movie

3. The City Is Its Own Character

There's no denying that any and every GTA game is defined by its setting - the cities are all characters in of themselves that define the player's entire experience, and the same is very much true of Collateral.

Mann makes great pains to convey the atmosphere of a night-time L.A. to audiences, focusing on the chill (and eventually, the terror) of driving around the city late at night, soaking in the sprawling environment just as players are routinely invited to do in GTA.

But more importantly, Mann follows GTA's lead and dares to go further - he presents an uncanny valley version of the city.

We know Collateral's L.A. as recognisable within the "real world", but it's also heightened in some particular ways to present a "hyper-real" new version that's both familiar and not at the same time.

For starters, Mann's digital cinematography creates a uniquely dreamlike depiction of the city, separated entirely from any other action thriller set in L.A., allowing the dingy alley-ways and neon-soaked streets to come to life in a way that just feels slightly off-kilter.

Across the franchise, GTA has similarly offered up exaggerated depictions of not only L.A. but also Miami, crafting cityscapes stuck half-way between photorealistic simulation and satirical caricature.

There's an expert sense of geography that the viewer and player is easily able to keep up with in each case, but it's still intentionally a little off.

Both Collateral and GTA have made their cities feel "alive" and sprawling in ways that go beyond the confines of the story, where the characters could easily just keep driving around until they stumble across something to interact with.

GTA co-creator Dan Houser once said that the series is "about creating a reinterpretation of the U.S., a socially and virtually distorted prism of the real thing...A world that, at first glance, seems completely normal, and then reveals its absurdity as you play it."

That is absolutely spot-on with the approximation of Los Angeles seen in the GTA games in particular, and it similarly applies to the version seen in Collateral - recognisable, but different.

If there are countless games and movies where the setting is nothing more than an arbitrary creative decision with little impact on the characters or their actions, in both GTA and Collateral, the city feels entirely consequential to what takes place.