“Collateral damage” is phrase that entered world’s vocabularies few decades ago as euphemism for US military butchering hundreds of thousands of innocent, usually brown-skinned, women and children. Many began to wonder how would Americans react if their own innocent civillians were to be given the same treatment by someone from the Third World. The answer came on September 11th 2001 and events that heavily affected the plot and distribution of Hollywood 2002 action film directed by Andrew Davis, half-ironically titled Collateral Damage.
The protagonist, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, is Gordon Brewer, Los Angeles firefighter. Plot begins when Colombian leftist guerillas, led by mysterious “Lobo” (played by Cliff Curtis), conduct spectacular bombing attack on Colombian consulate in Los Angeles. Many Colombian officials and CIA agents are killed, but also innocent civilians that include Brewer’s wife Anne (played by Lindsay Frost) and son Matt (played by Ethan Dampf). Frustrated by US government’s apparent inability to track down and bring murderous terrorists to justice, Brewer decides to travel to Colombia and do it himself. Despite lack of training and experience, but with help from number of individuals familiar with the country, he manages to infiltrate guerilla camp where he finds Selena (played by Francesca Neri), woman who, despite being Lobo’s wife, agrees to help him prevent Lobo’s organisation making another devastating bombing attack in USA.
Collateral Damage was originally scheduled for a release in October 2001, but with American public apparently still in shock over carnage and devastation of 9/11, producers postponed premiere and also removed certain scenes and altered many content details that might have been to disturbing. Even with such interventions and outside the context of 9/11 and War on Terror, Collateral Damage look like an example of many things that were and are still wrong of today’s Hollywood. The main problem is insult to the viewer’s intelligence in the form of script that panders to American chauvinism and suggests than even the ordinary US citizen, without any military training, would be able not only to survive in hostile country, but also to take down dangerous paramilitary organisation in a manner better and more efficient than those of Navy SEALs, Green Berets, Rangers or SAS. The same script, to its credit, gives hint of more nuanced approach by showing that the left wing guerillas have their counterparts in equally murderous right-wing militias and that CIA, represented by Machiavellian Agent Brandt (played by Elias Koteas), isn’t always the force of good. Unfortunately, the last chance for Collateral Damage to provide satisfactory entertainment is wasted near the ending, when the villains start to act like complete idiots only to provide “surprise” plot twist. Arnold Schwarzenegger, action star who few years earlier could have played roles of reluctant hero with ease, is here not very convincing in the main role. Collateral Damage suffers in comparisons not only with Schwarzenegger’s earlier films, but also with the plot that looks unimaginative and not spectacular in comparison what happened in real life. The film, quite unsurprisingly, failed at the box office and was savaged by critics, thus becoming one of the more forgettable and more obscure pieces of action cinema of its time.
RATING: 3/10 (+)
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