I say that not actually having any idea what their budget actually was. It just looks that way.
I watched this movie because I am a long-time fan of Jim Gaffigan's comedy and recently saw him in a film where he took on a serious role and absolutely nailed it. He certainly has the chops for drama and even though I didn't like Collide as a whole and skipped through a lot of it, he did a good job in his role even during this bizarre scene where he starts playing violin in his car for some reason.
It isn't an artsy film, so there was no hidden meaning there: Dude just feels like whipping out a violin and eventually his basic tune becomes the song that is playing in the film. So I guess there was a reason.
It stars Ryan Phillippe which I found amusing because I forgot that guy even existed. There was a push of sorts for him to be A-list about a decade or more ago but then he just kind of dropped off the radar.
I ended up skipping quite a lot of this film because it is mostly dialogue-driven and this becomes trivial and tiresome after a while. The continued talking also doesn't do much to advance the plot because the plot itself is something that could have been accomplished in a short film of around 20 minutes but this one is film-length and more than 50% of it is unnecessary, repetitious, and quite frankly, boring.
Jim is the main reason why I watched it but he really doesn't do much in the film at all other than sit in his car. Unless I missed something I don't think he ever leaves the car. In fact, most of the film is done with the actors remaining in one place and other than brief flashbacks the entire movie takes place in this one little restaurant named "Collide."
The plot of the film isn't entirely clear even after watching all of it but it has something to do with 4 sets of people that all have their own stories and all of these stories "collide" inside of this restaurant. There is a young couple who happened upon a bunch of lost cocaine and they inexplicitly decide to store it all in the walk-in freezer in the busy kitchen rather than keep it somewhere else like, I dunno, their apartments. Another duo is on a blind first date, another is a meeting between Jim Gaffigan's wife and her lover, and the last one is Jim, who is outside in the car, very aware of the fact that his wife is cheating on him.
If that sounds like spoilers to you I want you to understand two things: 1, I don't think you should watch this movie and 2, all of these various plotlines are spelled out for you in the first 10 minutes of the movie.
The main problem I had with this film wasn't that the plot was boring because it actually does have a wonderful opportunity for these various lives to in fact, collide. The main problem I had with the film was the manner in which it was filmed. I don't know the exact terminology for this type of filming but it appeared to be hand-held cameras that would rock all over the place and zoom in and out; kind of like the camera is the eyes of another person who isn't in the story that is spying on all of these various people. At certain points the camera actually ducks around the corner of a scene as if it was someone who just happened to be looking in on what was going on.
At certain points I felt like I was getting motion sickness in my bed and while I can understand why this would be intentional in a movie like The Hurt Locker it doesn't make any sense to me to use this film technique in a largely stationary set. There is little to no movement on the part of the characters who all remain in or around this one building, so why does the camera need to be shaking like hell? It's just annoying.
The acting is a lot better than I expected and it was a nice surprise to see Phillippe in this movie since I thought he was a goner.
By the end of the film almost nothing surprising happens at all and mostly it is just so slow-paced that it is more frustrating than anything else. I found myself saying "get on with it already!" at a lot of points in the film.
Should I watch it?
Sadly, as much as I want to support Jim Gaffigan as he turns over this new page in his career, I can't in good faith recommend that anyone waste their time on this. The idea of random people having their lives mash-up like this is a good concept, one that has been done many times before. However, there is maybe 20 minutes of actual story here and the rest is just filler. This, mixed with the horrible shaky way that the entire thing is filmed adds up to a movie that I struggled to make it all the way through and I think the same will be said by most other people that watch it.
I say spend 90 minutes watching almost anything else. Sorry Jim. It isn't your fault but this movie kind of sucks. It currently has around a 5/10 on most review sites and honestly, I think that is being very generous.
