Sometimes, a movie comes along that is so cold in nature and so straightforward in storytelling that we can't help but be in shock after we depart the theater.

This is the kind of impression that a good film will leave on the viewer, and it is the way I felt after I watched Collateral.

This is a film that doesn't pretend to be something its not: good-natured. It is a bad-guy movie, where the bad guy isn't a larger-than-life villain or a global domination-minded terrorist, but rather a person like you and me.

There can be no doubt that Tom Cruise's hitman Vincent is indeed human, although at times we may want to question whether or not he has a pulse. But it is this magnificently sound performance that makes Collateral standout far beyond any ordinary crime thriller, and one of the many parts that all come together flawlessly to make the movie click as a whole.

The film takes place over a period of about eight hours and is shot entirely during a single Los Angeles night. By choosing a near real-time format and accentuating it with the wildness and unpredictability of LA at night, director Michael Mann has already hinted at what kind of mood he wants his picture to have: a completely volatile one. Much like the actions of his main character Vincent, Mann wants the movie to have an unstable and mystifying feel to it. At most points during the film, it's almost as if the director is letting his camera do the thinking for him. On the night Collateral takes place, we are introduced not only to Cruise's Vincent, but also to a cab driver named Max, played equally well by Jamie Foxx. While Max may seem unassuming towards the beginning of the film -- just one LA cab driver in a sea of thousands -- we later learn that his character is an essential element to the film. When he picks up Vincent on what he believes is just another fare, the two men's lives collide head-on and are changed forever over the course of a single evening.

The movie's improvisational theme kicks off at the moment when Max discovers Vincent is a hired killer. While Vincent's plan was easy enough -- have a clueless cab driver chauffeur him from one cold-blooded murder to another and get out of LA without breaking a sweat -- his first victim decides to take a spill out of a window and land directly on the cab. The now clued-in Max realizes that he is Vincent's collateral and that this seemingly normal night is going to be anything but.

Mann has been one of the most skillfully adept action directors Hollywood has seen in years, and he doesn't hide it with Collateral. By choosing to shoot his movie entirely on digital film, he paints a portrait of Los Angeles that has never before been brought to the screen. His camera also gives the audience the unbelievable feeling that they are right along side Vincent and Max for this wild ride, as he and the film's technicians devised a way to shoot the driving sequences without any limitation whatsoever. Perhaps the ultimate statement that this film makes lies in its screenwriting. Cruise and Foxx are both terrific, but writer Stuart Beattie's harsh and cynical take on human lives is what echoes in our minds long after the movie has ended. Vincent tells us more than once during the night that he does what does for a living, nothing more, and indeed he acts on that statement, killing almost on the whim. We get the feeling that throughout the course of his life no one has questioned him on that statement. When Max finally does, Beattie's overall mission behind Collateral is revealed.