It may have been made well before the events of Sept. 11, and may have been delayed for months following those tragedies, but "Collateral Damage" still feels like rank exploitation.
And to top things off, this action-thriller can't even be termed "good" or "quality" exploitation. In fact, it's one of the most preposterous, by-the-number movies its star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has ever done.
Not that he can be held completely responsible for the film's lack of oomph or its rather pedestrian and predictable plotting — though, with his name on the marquee, Ah-nult is the most obvious and visible target.
He stars here as Gordy Brewer, a Los Angeles firefighter whose life changes in an instant. Arriving late to pick up his family, Gordy witnesses the terrorist bombing of the Colombian consulate.
Even worse, he's horrified to see that his wife and son (Lindsay Frost and Ethan Dampf) are caught in that deadly blast. Gordy's friends urge him to be patient and wait for justice to be served, but it appears that a CIA higher-up (Elias Koteas) is deliberately dragging his feet and using the event to drum up support for covert action.
So Gordy decides to take matters into his own hands. Using shadowy contacts to get into the country, he begins tracking the man responsible: El Lobo (Cliff Curtis), a mysterious Colombian rebel.
However, the rebels happen to know that Gordy's there, and the CIA isn't going to help him. If that isn't enough, Gordy is also trying to protect a woman (Francesca Neri) and her child (Tyler Garcia Posey) who may be caught in the crossfire.
Director Andrew Davis has been in something of a career free-fall after peaking with 1993's "The Fugitive." His pacing seems off this time, and the "twist" development near the end is set up so clumsily that you can see it coming by a mile.
Even Schwarzenegger doesn't seem too thrilled to be involved with this mess. His performance can best be described as phoning it in. Of the supporting performers, only John Leguizamo and John Turturro really register, and their parts are far too brief.
"Collateral Damage" is rated R for violence (gunfire, explosive mayhem and brutal beatings, including violence against women), scattered use of strong profanity, gore, a scene of torture, drug content (cocaine manufacturing) and use of crude sexual slang terms and racial epithets. Running time: 115 minutes.
E-MAIL: jeff@desnews.com