Undescribable Perfection

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This movie was okay,not the worst,not the best.First,the good,the story,well it is generic,it is well executed and it has a few good twists and turns.The pacing,the movie went by fast,but not too fast.The villains,they weren't amazing,but they were well written,they were intimidating and brutal,but you could understand were they were coming from,which was unexpected from an Arnold Schwarznegger movie.The climax,well not the best,was exciting and suspenseful.The best part though,was Arnold himself,well he does have to act through some bad dialogue,he was entertaining,and in a great twist,Arnold isn't an invincible badass,he gets hurt and fails to save people.Now,the bad,as I said,some of the dialogue is really stupid and cheesy.Even though this movie is kind of serious,there are some dumb moments that feel very out of place and take away from scenes that should be serious.The action,it runs a bit too short,and feels very repetitive,there's some shooting,and then too many explosions,excluding the climax.In the end,Collateral Damage has good villains and some good twists,but suffers from weak action,and bad scripting.

A bomb explodes outside of the Columbian consulate in L.A. Firefighter Gordon Brewer (Arnold Schwarzenegger) loses his wife and young son. The terrorist El Lobo who's real name is Claudio Perrini (Cliff Curtis) is responsible. A terrorist sympathizer calls Brewer's family collateral damage. CIA Columbia Chief Peter Brandt (Elias Koteas) is angered when senators terminates CIA operations and start peace talks. Brandt returns to CIA station Mompós while Brewer plans to sneak into the country. Brewer is hunted by all sides and is arrested. He is befriended by Canadian Sean Armstrong (John Turturro) and escapes with him when rebels breakout their comrades from jail. Using Armstrong's pass, Brewer infiltrates rebel territories to work for cocaine facility manager Felix Ramirez (John Leguizamo).Arnold faces a major problem. The story is too real and he's playing an everyman. The plan, such as it is, is too stupid. An American with terrible Spanish walks into the country to blindly wing it. It is too unbelievable and Arnold doesn't have the everyman persona anyways. The movie tries to be real except Arnold is too unreal and the situation is too unbelievable.

Collateral Damage was one of several movies that was postponed or re-edited in the wake of the September 11 attacks. In particular, Collateral Damage was delayed due to its themes about terrorism and its marketing campaign had to be reworked. Regardless, the film was still a disappointment. Once upon a time, Arnold Schwarzenegger was the #1 box office champion who could not go wrong. However, his vulnerability showed following the disappointment of Last Action Hero (1993). His star was on the wane following such box office flops as Batman and Robin (1997) and End of Days (1999). Collateral Damage certainly wasn't going to revive Arnold Schwarzenegger's career. In what was ominous signs, Arnold Schwarzenegger's glory days were as good as over. His career was briefly resurrected following the success of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) before he made the big decision to switch from Hollywood to politics, in which he was later elected as the Governor of California.Collateral Damage is about a Los Angeles firefighter Gordon Brewster (Arnold Schwarzenegger)who's wife and son are killed in a bomb blast outside the Colombian Consulate building as well as killing seven others. The person behind the bomb blast is revealed to be a terrorist calling himself "El Lobo" (The Wolf) also known as Claudio Perrini (Cliff Curtis). The Wolf further explains that the bomb was in retaliation for America's oppression of Colombia. Brewster is angered when the victims including his wife and son are considered to be collateral damage. CIA Special Agent Peter Brandt (Elias Koteas) has been tasked to take down The Wolf, but Gordon Brewster wants to cut through the red tape and take down the wolf himself. Also assisting Brewster when he reaches Columbia is a mysterious woman named Selena (Francesca Neri) who Brewster saves from an attack in Columbia along with her young son. Also appearing in small roles are John Leguizamo and John Turturro.The movie itself is very unrealistic and very dated. In fact this could have been a movie that could have been made in the 80's. And don't get me started on the fact a fireman wants to go down and take on the terrorists himself. Get real. If the character was a member of the police, military or even a government agency then the film would have been more believable. But a fireman?! That's where the film fails. Even for an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, this film is notable for his character in an action movie that does not touch a single firearm. Instead he uses makeshift bombs and takes on terrorists in hand to hand combat. It is not realistic to have an everyman take on terrorism and then see him in action kicking butt. Arnold is also on the negative side of 50 which makes him a bit too old to be taking on terrorists that he could have easily done with ease 10 years earlier. The story was very uninspiring, predictable and derivative with several inconsistent plot holes. If Arnold Schwarzenegger was not in Collateral Damage, I would not have given this movie a second thought. Collateral Damage is an unusual miss for Andrew Davis, director of The Fugitive (1993) and Under Siege (1992).While Collateral Damage may have suffered at the box office due to the events of September 11 2001, that aside it would not have made the slightest difference. The film was a disappointment, especially for Arnold Schwarzenegger.4/10.

Gordon Brewer is plunged into the complex and dangerous world of international terrorism after he loses his wife and child in a bombing credited to The Wolf. Frustrated with the investigation and haunted by the thought that the man responsible for murdering his family might never be brought to justice, Brewer takes matters into his own hands and tracks his quarry ultimately to Colombia.....After the horrific events in New York, this film was always going to fail. But it's not the film, nor anyone involved with the films fault. It was just plain bad timing.Take these specific elements away, and what you have is Arnold's best film of the noughties. There isn't many to choose from, but compared to The Sixth Day, and Terminator 3, this is really good stuff.What I believed irked many though was the fact that this wasn't The old Arnold we knew and loved. Gone were the one liners, gone were the muscle bound antics and Arnold being invulnerable, this was a step in a totally different direction, and it drove many away.The premise is pure Schwarzeneggar, but with such a tough subject matter, you can't really have a grieving father and husband quipping in every instance.The support are fantastic, Curtis is on form as usual, and Tutorro and Leguizamo make some bizarre but good cameos.it's not the action film you would expect from star and director, but it's a solid thriller, with a great performance from Arnold.Just don't expect the man from the eighties.