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 When
Hollywood celebrities broke out their Sunday best at last month's
ritzy, glitzy Golden Globes extravaganza, the word on the street was
things were finally getting back to normal in Tinseltown after last
September's devastating terrorist attacks on America. For the rest
of the moviegoing public, the real test was on February 8. That's
when Arnold Schwarzenegger's long-delayed Collateral Damage
finally hit theaters after being postponed from its original October
5 release date for fears that its terrorist-themed plot hit too close
to home.
At the time,
Hollywood was under strict orders to keep it light and sensitive,
but when testosterone-fueled movies like Behind Enemy Lines
and Black Hawk Down made a killing at the box office, the
mood quickly turned gung-ho and patriotic. Suddenly, moviegoers
were ready to face the music, and it was OK for Hollywood to pump
up the volume and take on the bad guys at the cineplexes.
That said,
the suits at Warner Bros. still faced an enormous challenge when
it came to promoting Collateral Damage. After all, how do
you promote a film about one-dimensional terrorists when the nation
is in the middle of an aggressive battle campaign against the real
thing? Will sensitive moviegoers--even hard-core Schwarzenegger
fans--be able to look past the film's gritty subject matter and
embrace it as the purely action-packed form of escapist entertainment
that it was originally intended to be? On the other hand, let's
face it: when it comes to America's war on terrorism, who better
to terminate the terrorists than the Terminator himself?
Timing is
everything in Hollywood, but unfortunately for Collateral Damage,>
the timing is off on just about everything. Despite the fact
that it was filmed over a year ago, it's still too soon to embrace
a movie about terrorism--especially one that trivializes it. In
addition, even if the attacks on America had never happened, times
have changed since Ah-nuld's big 80's Predator-Commando-Terminator
heyday, and quite frankly, he's just not the box office draw that
he used to be (his last movie, 2000's The 6th Day, grossed
a disappointing $34 million). Given these liabilities--not to mention
lame action sequences, poor characterization, and a predictably
contrived storyline--it's safe to say that Schwarzenegger's latest
film is "damaged" goods.
Happily married
Firefighter Gordy Brewer (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is running late
to meet his wife and son at an L.A. high-rise, but he shows up just
in time to see them killed in a terrorist explosion. The Wolf (Cliff
Curtis), a rebel leader in Colombia's long civil war, claims responsibility
for the action, but Brewer can only stand by helplessly as the FBI
drags its feet in its investigation of the incident. Brewer decides
to take matters into his own hands, and against everyone's advice,
he travels to the jungles of Colombia to single-handedly set his
own trap for The Wolf. The odds are against him, and it may cost
him his life, but he has one motivating factor in his favor: he's
already lost everything, and there's nothing more dangerous than
a man with nothing to lose.
Collateral
Damage would have been right at home had it come out somewhere
between Commando and Predator back in the 80's, but
in the 21st Century, it's merely a sub-par, by-the-numbers Schwarzenegger
vehicle that's past its prime. That's a shame, especially considering
that it was directed by Andrew Davis, the man behind action-packed
crowd-pleasers like Under Siege and the excellent The
Fugitive. Davis moves the film along at a lazy pace, and even
a noble but unnerving plot twist near the end is too obvious to
pack the emotional wallop that it's aiming for.
Despite his
best efforts to return to form, Collateral Damage is further
proof that Schwarzenegger is in dire need of a makeover before he
turns into a cinematic relic. That's easier said than done, especially
when you consider what his options are. His attempt at comedy may
have worked in lightweight fare like Twins and Kindergarten
Cop, but when the middling Junior was stillborn at the
box office, that was the end of that. In addition, Schwarzenegger
has never been one to flex his dramatic muscles, and nowhere can
that be seen better than when he utterly fails to convey the devastation
of losing his family. When he eventually reverts to his action hero
persona, his hokey one-liners hit the ground with a resounding thud,
and he ends up more like a caricature of the confident, over-the-top
powerhouse that he used to be.
The supporting
players are barely worth mentioning. Francesa Neri is much nicer
to look at than she is to listen to, and as her terrorist husband,
Cliff Curtis more or less plays the same bad-guy that he played
in last year's Blow. Elias Koteas brings some sleazy tactics
to his role as the beleaguered FBI agent who's dragging his tails
in the initial investigation, while John Turturro and John Leguizamo
show up in glorified cameos to bring some much-needed comic relief
to the proceedings.
A year ago,
everything was on track for Collateral Damage to be a run-of-the-mill
action film. After September 11, the tide changed and put enormous
weight on Schwarzenegger's shoulders--weight that even the 7-time
Mr. Olympia could not bear. That's hardly his fault, and in that
sense Collateral Damage has itself become collateral damage
in the war on terrorism. Even on its own terms, the film falls short,
but Schwarzenegger has one more chance to redeem himself with the
long-awaited Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines. That
may seem like the box office equivalent of a sure thing, but you
never know. Sure, Schwarzenegger will "be back," but it remains
to be seen whether moviegoers will embrace him or say "hasta la
vista, baby."
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