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Zone's Eye View of "Collateral Damage" 

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Synopsis of movie, courtesy of Warner Bros:

In one fleeting moment, L.A. firefighter Gordy Brewer (ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER) loses everything that he had ever cared about.

Running late to meet his wife and young son at a downtown high-rise, he witnesses a catastrophic bomb blast kill his family before his eyes. The explosion is credited to "The Wolf," an infamous rebel leader in Colombia's decades-long civil war. The intended targets were members of the Colombian consulate and American intelligence agents. Gordy's wife and child are considered "collateral damage," innocent people who lost their lives for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Gordy's only consolation is the hope that justice will prevail for the loss of his family. 

When the official U.S. investigation into the Wolf's whereabouts stalls, Gordy realizes that bringing the terrorist to justice is no longer a priority to anyone but himself. Against the advice of friends and pointed warnings from the CIA and the FBI, Gordy heads to war-torn Colombia to track him down alone. He puts his life on the line to bring the Wolf to justice but at this point he has nothing left to lose. Gordy's relentless pursuit leads him from the jungles of Colombia back to the streets of Washington where the bomber is preparing to strike again.

Now for The Zone's Eye View

By Laura Alber

Well, “Arnold the Avenger” is back. Once again, we have the “super-dad/husband”, this time playing the role of a firefighter. Let me re-phrase, a “super-firefighter”, of course, it wouldn’t be an Arnold movie if he wasn’t portrayed as “the best” now would it? Well, the 30 Million Dollar Man gives us the typical action hero we’re now so used to seeing with his films. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. Aside from the timing of the film, with the terrorism seeming a little too real, it remains to be seen if Collateral Damage would have done so well if not for the recent events in real life.

Damage has Schwarzenegger portraying a fireman who is late one day to meet his wife. Just as he is arriving, there is a bomb explosion in the building beside the woman and child, placed there by Columbian terrorists. Brewer (Schwarzenegger) unfortunately witnesses his family’s untimely and gruesome death. After realizing he actually saw the person responsible just before, he embarks on his own personal vengeance campaign. His travels take him to the jungles of Columbia, finding himself in quite a few difficult situations along the way. It seems that everywhere he goes, he must sneak by the police or the guerrilla’s infiltrating the country. Even the civilians he quickly learns cannot be trusted. He is in search of the alleged leader of the terrorist group, known only to the US Government as “The Wolf”.

When I saw the beginning credits, and noticed John Leguizamo and John Turturro were also in the film, I thought this might not be too bad. Well, don’t count on a lot of screen time from either one of these actors. It’s a wonder they made the credits at all. Turturro plays “Armstrong”, a kind of “go-to” guy who does a little of everything. They meet up in a Columbian jail after talking with him for a while; Brewer realizes Armstrong has a pass to travel safely up-river. It is forbidden to travel without one. After a little “negotiation”, Armstrong gives up his pass and refers him to “Felix” who will be up river waiting. Felix is played by Leguizamo and is a major cocaine manufacturer in need of some machine repairs, a job that Brewer is posing as being able to do. It doesn’t take long for the Columbians to find him, with both the police and guerrilla’s both hunting him down. (Why this one man poses such a threat is still a mystery). Regardless, Arnold builds himself plenty of homemade bombs, so there will be plenty of fun explosions to watch. He also manages to survive the impossible trip down a waterfall that any “normal” person would have been broken into tiny little pieces, but we are talking about Arnold now, Mr. Indestructible.

With the US Government hot on Brewer’s trail as well (they seem to be following him in the hopes that he will lead them to “The Wolf”), he does manage to find the camp where “The Wolf” is hiding. “Claudio” who Brewer uncovers as the “Wolf” has a wife and child, which he of course becomes attached to. He convinces the two to come with him to the states and escape the evil man. They agree, but I’m sure you can guess, there’s a little more to the story than this. I’ll let there be a few surprises left for you to find out, since you will want some reason to sit through this flick.

As you can tell, I was not impressed by Arnie’s latest. Nor how the movie made the Defense Department out to be basically idiots that needed to follow one man into the Columbian jungle in order to find their target. The Zone rates Collateral Damage a whopping 3 out of 10. Definitely not one I’ll be sitting through again. The filming and lighting were about the only good things the movie had going for it. The dialogue and acting were mediocre. Director Andrew Davis was obviously counting on Arnold’s pull with the men at the box office, and not paying attention to the actual “details” of the film.