Collateral Damage

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source: Collateral Damage

I chose to rent this movie for a simple reason: I was in the mood for something nice and stupid - a no-brainer action flick starring Arnie would perfectly fit that mood. What I got was something else. The story: Firefighter loses family in terrorist attack, goes on revenge mission to Columbia to find and kill terrorist. Sounds pretty dumb to me - and, let's face it, a lot of aspects of the movie are incredibly dumb. (Mostly those parts of the movie concerned with Arnie getting to Columbia, travelling through Columbia and getting into the rebel camp) But, and here's the catch, some are not. What starts out a simple movie with linear plot evolves slowly. After the rage comes a period of reflection. There are twists and turns in the plot, and the first half is full of time-filling minutes spent getting to know yet-another-comedic sidekick, who will disappear entirely from the movie within minutes (couldn't they have stuck with one sidekick? Or not bothered at all?), but then, as the plot turns around, the audience is suddenly faced with an interesting moment (which is later ruined by cheesy dialogue). Well, this being an action movie, the smart bits can last only so long, and then it all goes to pieces in a desperate attempt to have a traditional climactic good vs bad battle. So the end is a big let-down. Still, the movie IS entertaining (apart from a few minutes of boredom and confusion in the Columbia part) and, surprisingly, well-acted. Arnie is no character actor, and the mess he made of End of Days was embarrassing. Sixth Day brought some more flexing of acting muscles, and I actually liked his performance in that movie. Collateral Damage takes all he learnt and puts it to the test. He will never manage a Bruce-Willis alike 6th Sense / Unbreakable career turnaround, but he acted his role well, and was convincing. Mostly, at least. The support cast, filled with aforementioned comedic sidekicks, a CIA agent, a FBI agent and the terrorist and a Columbian woman - all do their jobs well. I kept wondering where I'd seen Cliff Curtis before, until I looked it up on IMDB - he was the charismatic leader of the Iraqi resistance in Three Kings. Here, he manages to dominate the screen just as well and once again is a show-stealer. Definitely the most memorable character of the movie. So, we have good acting, good entertainment, stupid action, a stupid end and some reasonably intelligent bit somewhere along the way. The body count is high, but surprisingly, Arnold does not actually kill many people (you can count his victims on the fingers of one hand). There is a gruesome scene involving a snake, which is basically pointless, but that did not reduce my enjoyment of the movie. All in all, a good movie to watch. Not brilliant, but not as bad as some people may think either.

Ok, so we've all seen at least ONE Arnold movie - and you know what they say... "If you've seen one, you've seen 'em all." This isn't necessarily true in the case of "Collateral Damage". We expect Arnold to run into a terrorist compound in the jungle, guns blazing, unlimited explosives, managing to not get hit by gunfire even while standing still in the middle of a field, one-liners running like water... But THAT movie was "Commando". Remember? Anyway, in "Collateral Damage" Arnold is actually a vulnerable character. He gets BEAT UP more than he beats up others. Now, while Arnold fans (myself included) prefer Arnold to be invincible, in this case it works really well. Not just because it moves the story along, but also because it makes the protagonist more believable. Ok, sure, Arnold saying "gracias" to some Columbian bus driver is HARDLY believable, but I think you know what I mean. You will also find yourself saying "who is the REAL villain here?" on more than one occasion. Sure, terrorists kill. That's what they do. But why do you THINK they became terrorists to begin with? "Collateral Damage" touches on the subject briefly - enough to humanize the terrorist leader, even! Most of the reviews I've read here have been negative... But those same reviewers were probably Arnold-philes who were expecting something along the lines of "Commando 2". As it is, personally I really enjoyed "Collateral Damage." If not a smart purchase, then it's definitely a wise rental. Check it out and see for yourself.

Yes, another typical Arnold Schwarnegger film which translates to (a) interesting all the way; (b) very violent; (c) very far-fetched. Here, Arnold is just a plain old fireman but he turns into superhero, doing things only Superman or Batman could accomplish....but it's still fun to watch. After seeing his wife and kid blown up by Columbian terrorists, Arnold goes after the latter, traveling to the jungles of that South American country and taking them on! In the end, he's in Washington trying to diffuse another terrorist plot. He's amazing. What CAN'T this guy do? Yes, it's ludicrous....but it's not meant to be taken seriously, folks! It's just entertainment for fans of action movies, nothing more. There is a nice twist at the end of this story and it involves a very intriguing-looking woman, Francesco Neri. I just love that woman's face: very sexy, especially for someone her age. She's also in "Hannibal" but I think the rest of her films are Italian. I would like to see more of her work. There are also some short appearances by two always-entertaining actors, John Turturro and John Leguizimo. Scharwarznegger's action films usually have a fair amount of tongue-in-cheek humor and those two actors help along those lines in this film. Elias Koteas plays the too-gung-ho FBI guy. Hollywood just will not portray an FBI, CIA, DEA, or any government agent in a positive manner. That would offend their liberal peers in the movie business, so Koteas plays the lawman you can't trust in this movie. In fact, they make it so you don't know if you can trust anyone in the government, which also is typical Hollywood fare. Don't believe the national critics, however, if they panned this film. It's two hours of good escapist fare.

The most depressing thing about "Collateral Damage" isn't that it's reminiscent of 9/11 (the resemblance is pretty superficial), but that it epitomizes the sad state of Arnold's decaying movie career. Looking old and burnt out, he plods his way through a plot that is really much too serious for an action movie. He has no hilarious one-liners and he kicks only a modicum of a**, which is a big mistake since that's what we're paying to see. The mighty have fallen to this... I was impressed with Francesca Neri's performance, and unlike everybody else in the universe I think that Arnold is actually a pretty good actor. But his material here is B-grade political thriller stuff that belongs in a Tom Clancy paperback packed with schematics of all the military vehicles involved. Arnold works better in sci-fi and fantasy settings; his contemporary Earth movies are pretty boring, and I'm always amazed that none of the supporting characters ever comment on his physique or accent. Why doesn't somebody, just once, say "daaaaamn, that's a big Austrian guy"?

Another big payday for Arnold, and yet, another piece of Collateral Garbage. Can Arnold read anything besides dollar signs? Go rent "Commando" instead for a good, unbelievable, escapism flick... I don't expect much from Arnold but the only thing controversial about this movie was the hype about the controversey that could only help promote it beyond it's own stupidity... Bad acting, bad casting, poor effects, and not even controversial. WASTE OF TIME and a CURE FOR INSOMNIA!!! SKIP IT!!!

Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a fireman (for no particular reason that I could see), whose wife and kid are accidentally killed in a Colombian terrorist attack. 10 minutes later he's in Columbia searching for the terrorist. Typical Arnie film but very fast-moving with tons of fights, explosions, gun play, really implausible situations and loads on violence. But it's hard to watch a Hollywood film about terrorists after the Sept 11 tragedy. In fact, it's downright uncomfortable. All in all it's OK but very familar and really silly. There was a good twist at the end though. One thing--Arnie is 55 and looks it. Isn't he getting a little too old to be doing this? In some shots he looks terrible!