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 he new Ahnuld movie "Collateral Damage" can be
said to be an accidental but nevertheless a victim of circumstance. The film was
supposed to be released a few months after the tragedy of 9/11, but was
postponed because the contents of the movie were eerily similar to the
circumstances of the terrorist attack on New York and Washington. Pushed all the
way back to 2002, "Damage" came out to little fanfare and although its
star heavily pushed the film on talk shows, there was conspicuously little
promotion for the film in other media outlets. It's no surprise then that the
majority of people I talked to didn't even know Schwarzenegger had come out with
a new movie.
Of course it could also be explained that maybe people did
know about the movie, but just didn't bother with it because they thought it was
the same-o same-o. And they would be right. "Collateral Damage" gives
us nothing we haven't seen before from Arnold, who plays Gordon Brewer, a hero
fireman who turns into the unstoppable Terminator after his wife and son are
killed in a bomb set by a terrorist called the Wolf. When Gordon realizes the
U.S. Government has not only given up on tracking down the Wolf, but is actually
succumbing to his demands, Gordon is none too please.
"Damage" brings Arnold back to Everyman
territory, and it works. Arnold the person is now in his early '50s and is but a
shell of his former glory days. The facial lines are there, the movement is a
little slower, and there are more limitations on physical stunts. This in light
of the fact that the Gordon character has to leap fireballs, rivers, and army
after army of guerillas with AK-47s. Arnold is not the young man he once was,
but that all seems perfectly fitting here. Arnold's Gordon is so Everyman that
he doesn't even touch a gun! Not once in the entire movie! (Although I think
Gordon did wrestle with one character as both men clutched onto a machinegun…)
"Damage" is directed by Andrew Davis ("Under
Siege") and the film has that glossy, expensive Hollywood look. The
fireballs and explosions and gun squibs are all very pretty to look at. Since
this is an Arnold movie, there are plenty of sidekicks by famous faces. John
Turturro and John Leguizamo show up in bit parts. The film is quite funny and
lively when those two men are onscreen to crack wise and either help or hinder
our hero as he goes on his quest for revenge. Leguizamo, in particular, plays a
drug dealer who is actually quite likeable.
The Griffiths, who wrote "Damage," has obviously
tried to inject some politics into the story. When Gordon arrives in Columbia to
seek his vengeance, the screenplay delves into the political climate of the
country, and how both the guerillas and the American-back nationalist government
(including a large helping of CIA spooks led by Elias Koteas) are doing their
fair share to send the country straight to hell and terrorize its people.
Neither the guerillas, who makes deals with cocaine dealers to fund their war,
nor the cops who stops everyone on the street and shoots anyone suspected of
being a guerilla, are angels. In that way, the film does earn some points. A
more conspiracy-minded person might even say that the screenplay posits a belief
that the CIA is the actual culprit behind all of Columbia's problems.
Arnold's Gordon is of course the heart of the film, and he
does a very fine job. The older Arnold doesn’t favor guns, but cunning and a
large helping of luck, which comes in handy because Gordon doesn't just get into
scraps, he ends up in the middle of wars! Throughout the film Gordon is quite
vulnerable, clearly not the superman Arnold is used to playing. Besides his
avoidance of guns, Gordon is also an ex-bomb maker, so that means he rigs up
some pretty nifty explosive devices to take out the bad guys. Just because he
doesn't shoot people doesn't mean he can't blow them up, natch.
Eventually "Collateral Damage" reveals itself to
be what it is: another Arnold movie with a lot of loud explosions, and God knows
we've seen that hundreds of times before. All the same qualities that goes into
making a successful action film is here, but with Arnold at the helm, it just
seems, well, old news.
Unless you like this kind of stuff, in which case
"Collateral Damage" is quite a taut and fast-moving film that never
fails to entertain. It certainly knows its explosions, that's for sure.
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