Sociopaths in media: Collateral

From a reader:

I loved the movie Collateral, starring Tom Cruise as Vincent the hitman and Jamie Foxx as the largely hapless cab driver, particularly this clip. Here’s the set up: Maxx is a cab driver with dreams of owning his own limo service. He’s been driving his taxi for 12 years, telling himself all the while that he is planning and saving money, awaiting the perfect time to start his own business. When Vincent gets into the backseat of his cab, Maxx assumes he’s just another fare. He is of course dead wrong. Vincent forces Maxx to act as his driver, ferrying him to various locations around LA to kill everyone on his to-do list.

In this scene, Vincent and Maxx have just escaped a hectic shoot out at a nightclub. Vincent has killed the 4th of the 5 victims on his hit list and Maxx attempted to escape during the melee with the help of detective Fanning. Just when it seemed as if Maxx and Fanning would make it, Vincent shoots the detective, thinking he was doing Maxx a favor. As you will see, Maxx has an epiphany of sorts after being confronted with Vincent’s harsh but truthful views.

I really liked this movie. The performances were terrific. Contrasting Fox’s passive everyman with Cruise’s uber disciplined sociopath made for a thematically interesting dynamic. The scene was, in a nutshell, an insightful look at how sociopaths see empaths better than they see themselves. I wonder though, is Vincent really a sociopath or is his career choice simply an inevitable result of his philosophical nihilism? Not that it matters to any of his victims.