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Last action hero
ONE MAN ARMY: Arnold Schwarznegger in action.
Collateral Damage (ENGLISH)
Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elias Koteas
Dir: Andrew Davis
THIS FILM was in the news as its release date was postponed after
9/11. It was also in the news for protests against the portrayal of a fireman as an outlaw. However, when one watches Collateral Damage, one realises that too much weight and thought has been put into what is essentially a no-brainer action flick.
For instance, the terrorist says, "you see a peasant with a gun on television and you change the channel. You never bother to find out why the peasant needs the gun." That is just a piece of dialogue and if you expect the movie to provide the answers to that you are being over-optimistic.
Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Gordy Brewer, a Los Angeles fireman whose life is turned upside down when his wife and child are killed in a terrorist attack. A Columbian militant, known as the Wolf, takes responsibility for the attack.
Brewer soon realises he has to take law into his own hands as the FBI and CIA and the government is involved in some sort of diplomatic wrangling and no action is being taken. So he goes to Columbia, manages to escape several attempts on his life and beats up several bad guys - all accompanied by suitable bangs and bursts of flame. Action shifts to Washington where the Wolf is all set to strike again.
The film has a sense of being slapped together with no rhyme or reason for things happening the way they are. This is however, in the tradition of no-brainer action flicks where there is no time to really pick holes in the plot.
So we come to the action sequences, which are done in a very workman like fashion - the feeling is "now we have to have a bike chase or lots of bullets flying around, so let us do it." One does not expect Academy Award winning acting in an action flick and this film does not disappoint. Everyone hams and the height is Elias Koteas who plays Agent Brandt doing a really terrible parody of de Niro. Schwarzenegger looks old and sleepwalks through his role.
One of the main ingredients of an action flick - the wry one-liners are conspicuous in their absence, which is a pity. Directed by Andrew Davis who helmed super taut thrillers like The Fugitive and Perfect Murder and also senseless stuff like Chain Reaction, Collateral Damage is worth a look for a tad of nostalgia - they are not going to make films like these for a long, long time.
MINI ANTHIKAD-CHHIBBER
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